


Leather and Brine

by seibelsays



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Invaders (Marvel), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: The First Avenger Compliant, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Selkies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-03-17 09:50:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 38,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18962839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seibelsays/pseuds/seibelsays
Summary: James Barnes went to war with a secret. A lifetime later, Darcy Lewis discovered it.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome! This story has been kicking around my brain for awhile now and I'm so excited to finally share it with you.
> 
> Couple things to note:  
> 1\. Movie canon flew out the window approximately halfway through Captain America: The First Avenger. Bucky was captured by Hydra at Azzano and rescued by Steve. He did not fall from the train and was not brainwashed by Hydra to become the Winter Soldier.  
> 2\. The story is almost completely written and will update regularly.  
> 3\. We're playing a bit fast and loose with selkie lore, but I felt like the spirit was there.  
> 4\. If there is a bit in the story you like, it was likely inspired by the fabulous [Crimtastic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimtastic), who has patiently listened to me whine about this story for longer than is probably acceptable, because she is awesome and I am a mess.  
> 5\. Mood music? Thought you'd never ask: Find the playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/45dHVDkRpPjdOgI9ErN1Ve)

* * *

_Affectionate and affable, Selkies are true hidden gems of mythology; their myths are sweeping romantic tragedies. While the tales of Selkies always begin with a warm and peaceful "once upon a time", there can be no happy ending for the tales of Selkies - someone always gets their heart broken._  
Ianto Boothby, Legends of the Sea, Ragnarok Press, 1917.

* * *

_~* Somewhere over the Atlantic, 1945 *~_  
“The...Oh god. Buck, the missile...it’s primed and ready. It’s headed for New York!” Steve yelled.

Bucky motioned for Steve to give him a leg up as he clamored atop the missle. “I can disarm it, same as the others.”

“Buck, they’re going to drop any second-”

He jammed a tool into the seams between the panel, attempting to wrench it open. “I can do this!”

“Buck, there’s no time. Maybe we can shoot it down once it drops.”

Bucky continued working. “You willing to gamble all of New York on that?” he snapped. “It’s too risky - let me try.”

“Bucky - no, I can’t - you just -”

“There’s no time!” Bucky yelled and grabbed onto the missile as the bomb door opened below to drop it. Bucky fell from the plane and had just established his grip on the missle when it’s navigation system kicked in and powered towards the city.

“BUCKY!” Steve voice faded quickly.

He couldn’t think about that now. Steve would be fine. Of course Steve would be fine. He would land the plane safely so the missiles they’d already disarmed couldn’t hurt anyone else. He would go home, mission accomplished. 

Bucky felt his muscles strain as he adjusted his grip, trying desperately to keep hold of the missile and finish his own mission. Mentally counting the seconds, he channeled his desperation into strength, doubling his efforts as he ripped open the panel on the missile and quickly assessed what he was dealing with. Simple trigger, timer, navigation - 

Booby trap.

_Shit._

Bucky reached in and wrapped a hand around the wires leading navigation system as the trap blew, sending him flying off the missile. Shock dulled the pain as he plummeted towards the ocean below. He had enough presence of mind to fold himself into a position that wouldn’t immediately kill him when he hit the water. He watched as the missile lost its guidance and went into freefall next to him.

Mission accomplished then. That was something at least.

_It wasn’t for nothing, Stevie. Don’t beat yourself up too much._

And he would be in the sea. Home, of a sort. Even if he hadn’t been back in quite some time. Even if he was missing that essential part of him that linked him to the sea. 

Maybe Namor or his people would find him and take pity. Steve would survive to tell Rebecca his story.

In any event, Bucky wouldn’t be there to see it.

The water rushed toward him as he fell, the sea singing her siren song, calling him home.

He hit the water hard. The waves swallowed him and the world faded to black.


	2. Chapter 1

_~* A lifetime later *~_  
Darcy rubbed her tired eyes. One more box. Just one more box and then she could clock out for the night.

It wasn’t that helping to catalog all of the artifacts available for the Smithsonian’s new Captain America exhibit wasn’t awesome - it was, she really loved this job - but it was that there was so much _crap_. Seriously. It was the 1940s. How was there this much stuff left behind? It was almost as though Howard Stark had combed all of Brooklyn for any scrap of anything that might have been in the vicinity of Steve Rogers for more than four seconds and tucked it all away in a storage facility upstate on the off chance that someone might want all this someday.

(Darcy also had a few questions about hosting the exhibit in the Air and Space Museum, given that Steve Rogers only known time as a pilot was that time he crashed a plane into an iceberg and got himself frozen for 70 years, but she was keeping that to herself.)

(But seriously. She had questions.)

She checked the label on the side of her last box and frowned. _James Barnes_.

Ugh. That was a metric fuckton of paperwork that she didn’t really feel like getting into tonight. She was already hip deep in notes from all of Captain Rogers’ things that she’d gone through today - was she up to starting something new? Surely it could wait until tomorrow? 

Then again, there was a deadline hanging over their heads. And she only got this job because of a favor to a friend of a friend and her inadvertently acquired security clearance. Messing it up wasn’t in anyone’s best interest. Even if she barely knew what she was doing. She had always excelled at winging it. 

She sighed and opened the box. Damn Jane and her stupid work ethic rubbing off on her.

“Sweet cookies and cream, what a mess,” she muttered. While most of Steve’s boxes were neat as a pin, each box having a theme, this was just...a mess. As though someone took Barnes’ kit, dumped it in a box, and just stashed it away after he died, never to be looked at again.

She glanced around, looking to see if she could pick out just how many boxes of good ‘ol Jimmy Barnes’ crap were waiting for her. If she had to spend the next few days sorting through the detris of his life and it was all this much of a disaster, she was going to have to reconsider his distinction of “If I Had To Pick A Historical Figure” on her list of fantasy bangs. Boy might have eyes to die for and lips made for sin, but being a slob killed her lady boner.

Then again. 

It wasn’t as though _he_ stored these things away. This was all done after his death - either by an indifferent staffer or by someone who had been actively grieving the man and emotionally unprepared to pack his life away. In Steve’s case, it had been done with care - whoever boxed everything up knew that they were preserving tiny bits of history. But this…

A sudden vision of Steve Rogers attempting to pack these things away swam before her eyes and she had to bite back a gasp at the thought. She’d never met the man, but she _had_ been digging through the remains of his previous life for the last few months. She might know 1945 Steve Rogers better than anyone else left on the planet, save the man himself and maybe Peggy Carter.

The image bothered her. Had any of James Barnes’ belongings ever made it back to his family? She dug through the box. Some of it would have been disregarded even then - and honestly never should have made it into the box in the first place, had anyone who’d cared been packing it. She supposed the deck of playing cards earned a spot, but why was it in the same box as a few rounds of ammo and...were those crumbs or dirt - or heaven forbid, bug corpses? She yanked her hand out of the box. Either way - they didn’t belong and she was more than a little miffed at whoever threw all of this into a box without care or labels or _anything_.

Well. Whatever had happened, it was her job to look after all this now.

She muttered under her breath as she continued to sort through the box, making careful notes as she went. Her fingers brushed paper and she had to smile at the well-read pulp science fiction novel with its broken spine and dog eared pages. What story would have caught Sergeant Barnes’ eye? Not wanting to flip through the book, given it’s already delicate condition, she paused for a second to do a quick search on her phone for the title. 

“Tell me about yourself, _Armageddon 2419 A.D._ ,” she murmured. She buzzed through a few links in her search until she found a quick synopsis. The smile slid off her face as she realized it was the story of a World War I soldier who wakes up in the future, only to have to go to war again. She stopped reading and set her phone aside.

“Irony is depressing,” she muttered, giving the book a glare - as though it was responsible for what happened to Steve Rogers.

She reached into the box and pulled out the last item - a soft and well-loved brown leather jacket. As the jacket fell out of the hasty folds it had been crushed into, Darcy caught a whiff of salt and sand and something warm and solid that she didn’t quite have a name for, but made her ache for _home_ all the same. She ran her fingers over the collar, feeling a little guilty. She was in no way handling this jacket the way she knew she should be, given its age and historical significance. At the same time, the jacket had no business being in as good a shape as it was in, given the conditions in which it had been stored for so long, so she absolved herself of most of her guilt as she leaned close and took a deep sniff. How it still smelled like the ocean was beyond her, but it was comforting all the same. She had never really even liked the water, but the scent that clung to the jacket made her heart long for a windswept beach on a sunny day.

It was a beautiful jacket - clearly well made. Clearly well loved. James Barnes had adored this jacket, taking it with him to the front, when the space could have been used for a million other things. 

A jacket this beloved had probably been fairly well known to his family and friends, too. Darcy could almost picture it, chasing down the mental images with her fingertips as she ran them along the seams. James Barnes stuffing his hands into the pockets and snuggling down into its warmth on an icy December day as he walked through his neighborhood. Throwing his arm around a tiny Steve Rogers, surreptitiously wrapping the smaller man up and sharing the jacket’s warmth.

There’s no way anyone ever attempted to get James Barnes’ personal effects back to his family. This jacket would have been something they would have cherished.

Right?

Darcy supposed it didn’t actually matter anymore. Anyone who would have taken comfort from this jacket was long gone. Now it was up to her to see that it was properly cared for. 

She set it aside with the other items she would recommend for inclusion in the exhibit and scribbled down her notes, mentally designing the display. She knew her history - and in the story of Steve Rogers life, James Barnes deserved to be much more than a few lines, accompanied by a date of birth and a date of death. In her mind, the display would feature James Barnes’ beloved jacket - caring for it here in the future the way someone should have cared it for in the past. She might not be able to give the jacket the family and friends it had once kept warm, but she could at least ensure its survival. 

She could protect what was left of James Barnes, now that the rest of the world had forgotten him.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Italics sections are Bucky's memories as he dreams and drifts._

Darkness consumed everything. The light. The sound. The taste and feel of the air. 

Until all that was left was memory.

_No one had any idea where they took the prisoners who were pulled off the work line. They only knew that no one ever came back. But maybe...just maybe..._

_“Pssst,” he whispered to the guard. When he had his attention, he slowly pulled a crooked, come-hither smile - the one that had never failed to get him a drink or a dance or a smile back home. When that failed to get a reaction, he poured just a tiny bit of power into it. He tapped that hidden part of him that was irresistible to the unsatisfied._

_Who could be more unsatisfied than a low-ranking guard in a Hydra prison?_

* * *

Darcy twisted the lanyard holding her keycard and ID around her fingers as she slowly paced the lobby. It wasn’t that she was nervous. She just really wanted Steve Rogers to like the exhibition.

It was about his life, after all. One would hope that they’d gotten it right. 

In theory, it shouldn’t even be _her_ giving this tour. She wasn’t the exhibit curator, she wasn’t in PR for the museum. She’d been part of a much larger team, all of whom had far more experience with this sort of thing. She just happened to be the only member of said team with a security clearance that allowed personal access to an Avenger. 

_Thank you, Thor._

The sun glinted off the glass door as it opened, allowing Steve Rogers to enter. She turned towards the door, releasing the lanyard and letting it fall to her side as she squared her stance.

“Captain Rogers,” she greeted with a small smile.

He reached out a hand and she shook it. “Ms. Lewis,” he replied with a small nod, “thank you for taking the time to walk through with me today.”

“Of course, Captain.”

“Please, call me Steve.”

“Only if you call me Darcy,” she replied with a grin.

“Deal.”

She motioned forward, leading him into the museum towards the exhibit.

“Ms. Potts tells me I have you to thank for the private tour before the grand opening gala,” Steve said.

Darcy shrugged, then mentally kicked herself because she’d never quite mastered a professional-looking shrug. The gesture made her look 12 years old again. 

“It’s part of your life’s story. Even though you already know it and I know you’ve been in contact with a number of my colleagues as we’ve put the exhibit together, I can’t imagine seeing all of it for the first time with a designer-clad audience and a press line would be an experience anyone would enjoy.”

Steve’s expression tightened at the thought. “Yeah. That would be…”

“Less than ideal?” she supplied, smiling. “Besides, I had an ulterior motive.” She leaned closer just as they reached the doors at the start of the exhibit to let him in on her secret. “If you spot anything wrong today, I still have time to fix it.”

Steve laughed and held the door for her. She entered her keycode into the pad next to the door to activate the lights and interactive exhibits. 

The polite smile Steve had worn since the moment he walked into the building slipped off his face as he took in the opening section of the exhibit. Darcy watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard, and silently followed his gaze. He had immediately looked past the “early years” displays and was staring at the large uniform display and mural, highlighting the Howling Commandos. His lips parted and twitched slightly, as though he were searching for something to say.

She silently stepped to stand at his side. “Captain America was nothing without his team, right?” she murmured.

* * *

He twisted in the current as he sank through the depths. He should be scared. He wasn’t.

_“They won’t be pulling anyone from our cell for awhile. Best I could do for now.”_

_Dum Dum eyed him warily. “How’d you manage that?”_

_Bucky tried for a careless grin, but he had a feeling it looked a little brittle. “I can be very charming.”_

* * *

“Yeah,” Steve breathed. “I didn’t...whose idea was this?”

Darcy hesitated. Technically, having such a large display for the Commandos had been her idea - lure the crowds in with Cap, but actually teach them something once they were here. Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it, after all. But so much of this was a team effort, and she didn’t want to take undue credit.

She totally could. Maybe she should - future employment was a thing she might need to worry about. But...embellishing to Steve Rogers felt like kicking golden retriever puppies or making baby bald eagles cry. Or something.

“I didn’t think anyone was interested in anything beyond the suit anymore,” Steve continued, not waiting for her answer. He blinked out of his reverie and walked slowly around the entrance hall, taking in the effect of the exhibit as a whole, before getting up close with each display. Most of the entrance was Steve’s childhood and Project Rebirth, before opening up to the Howling Commandos mural, but it was still an hour before he was ready to move into the next room.

Darcy worried her lower lip as Steve drew closer to the next room. When he finally turned the corner, he stopped dead in his tracks.

The first thing every person walking this part of the exhibit would see was a large wall dedicated to the tragically short life story of James Buchanan Barnes. And now, his best friend was standing right in front of it for the first time.

Darcy struggled to stay silent and still, not wanting to break the moment for Steve. _This_ was exactly why she had argued for a private showing before the grand opening. The PR team wanted cameras to capture Cap’s first, genuine reactions to each section. While Darcy understood the impulse, she’d argued against it. Steve had died to save the world. The very least they could do was allow him the privacy to memorialize what he’d lost in peace for five minutes before he’d have to let his public facade settle into his bones again.

She followed his eyes as they read through the text etched into the glass, telling Barnes’ life story. When he got to the end, his eyes slid over the photos - far faster than anything he’d examined thus far - and moved onto the case containing some of the items she’d pulled from the three James Barnes boxes that had arrived with everything else.

* * *

_“Shhhhh,” Gabe soothed and moved a little closer. “Maybe give the magic a rest, huh? We can manage for a bit,” he whispered._

_Bucky shook his head. Or he tried to - everything was a little fuzzy. “Protect you,” he bit out through chattering teeth._

_“Stubborn idiot,” Gabe muttered fondly. He leaned next to Bucky’s ear. “Where’s your skin? I can throw the blanket over you while you shift-”_

_“Home.”_

_Gabe froze. “Oh,” he said softly._

_Bucky was glad Gabe understood. “Let me do this.”_

* * *

Steve froze in front of the case.

“How…” he breathed, reaching out to touch the glass, pulling his hand back at the last instant, as though simply touching the glass would cause it to shatter.

“Yes?” she asked, very quietly.

“The jacket,” he blurted.

“It was mixed in with the other personal effects,” she replied slowly. “The thought is that someone just stashed everything from his kit away. There wasn’t much rhyme or reason to his boxes.”

“The jacket should have been returned to his family,” Steve said firmly, his voice tinged with a shade of anger. “There were instructions for how to handle anything any of the Commandos left behind in the event of their deaths. I _asked specifically_ that Bucky’s jacket be returned to his family.”

“I thought it should have been too,” she agreed, “but I can’t seem to find any record of anyone trying.”

Steve exhaled heavily and rubbed his eyes.

“Can you - just. Take it down. Please?”

Darcy’s eyes widened in shock, but she looked away from Steve and to the jacket to try to cover. Take it down? To do what with it? Yes, the jacket should have been returned to the Barnes family back in 1945, but it hadn’t been. It ultimately ended up in her hands instead. There were records of _boatloads_ of nieces and nephews - if James Barnes were alive today, he’d be an uncle, great uncle, and great-great uncle many times over - but they had scattered to the wind. She hadn’t been able to get ahold of anyone even tangentially related to the man. And even if she had - say, for example, his 18 year old great-great nibling Jimmi _did_ answer their email (or Instagram DM, because yeah, she’d done that - hell, she’d tracked down their damn AO3 account but hadn’t gotten any response) - what exactly was the kid going to do with the jacket?

Then again, in the absence of family, perhaps Steve Rogers _was_ the best person to be speaking for James Barnes. 

“If I take it down, it’s just going back into storage,” Darcy hedged, unable to promise anything more and unwilling to give him false hope for something else. “Would it be -”

“Please.” Steve’s eyes were red, but dry.

“Okay,” she agreed, before she could talk herself out of it. “I’ll get it out today and...uh...any attachment to those pulp novels of his? I can put those up instead.”

Steve stuttered out a laugh. “Which ones? He always had at least one on him, I don’t…” his voice trailed off and his red eyes weren’t quite so dry anymore.

“Well, I probably won’t display any of the dirty ones,” she teased gently.

“Oh go ahead. It would be truer to his character.”

Darcy grinned, happy to see a small semblance of a smile returning to Steve face. “Sergeant Barnes was a real hound dog then?”

* * *

_“Sergeant Barnes,” he said, as a guard opened the cell and reached for Bucky._

_“No,” Gabe said. “I’ll go!”_

_Dum Dum and Morita jumped in front of Bucky and shoved the guard back, starting a scuffle. The guard raised a baton swung it wildly, connecting with Morita’s head, causing the man to crumple immediately. Falsworth pulled the unconscious man out of fracas as more guards poured into the cell and shoved back against Bucky’s men._

_“Take me instead!” Gabe yelled again._

_“Or me!” Dum Dum agreed._

_“I’ll go!” Falsworth agreed._

_“Gentlemen,” Bucky wheezed, pulling himself upright. “Save your strength.”_

_The doctor’s face split into an evil, satisfied grin that made Bucky’s stomach churn._

_“Sergeant Barnes,” he said. “I am Doctor Zola. I can’t wait to discover all of your secrets,” he said, his voice low and filled with dark promises that Bucky was certain he was not going to enjoy. Bucky leaned forward and vomited on Zola’s shoes._

* * *

“Nah,” he replied, his eyes going soft and unfocused. “Bucky talked a lot, but deep down I think he wanted to settle down eventually. He just never…” Steve trailed off and looked away for a moment, before turning back to her with a wistful smile.

“Anything else I can do here? I should probably let you know that the James Barnes display is my baby, so. Be gentle.” 

“Your baby?” he asked, his brow furrowed.

“Well, yeah,” she hedged. “The exhibition as a whole was a team effort. But this display was just me. So, you know. Constructive feedback is appreciated.”

“Thank you for going to all this trouble for him,” he murmured.

Darcy smiled. “It’s been my pleasure,” she said, honestly.

“You have two different years of birth on the wall.”

“Goddamnit.”

***

“Sire,” the guard said, bowing his head briefly upon approaching the throne. “There has been an incident.”

Namor rose. “Show me.”


	4. Chapter 3

“The creature arrived not long ago,” the guard said. “It takes the form of a human, but it is most definitely not. No human could survive the depths.”

“It is alive?” Namor asked as they approached the gate.

“Yes.” The guard motioned to two other guards, who brought the creature forward for examination by their king. “But it has been asleep for a very long time.”

Namor narrowed his eyes at the creature. There was something oddly familiar about it. 

“Can you wake it?”

“We were awaiting your order, sire.”

“Do it.”

The guard motioned for the creature to be taken away to be woken.

“Wait,” Namor said. He approached the creature again and peered closer at the creature’s face. His eyes widened as he was struck by a flash of memory. “Bucky?” he murmured.

“Sire? Do you know this creature?”

“I...Yes. I did, once. He was my brother in arms. During the war.”

The guard hesitated as the other Atlantians carrying Bucky glanced at each other warily. “Pardon me, sire,” the guard said finally, “but weren’t the others all...human? This creature is too young and could not possibly -”

“The icy waters of our home have clearly preserved him,” Namor interrupted, then lowered his voice almost to a murmur. “And James was always something more than he appeared.” He considered Bucky for another moment. 

“Wake him.”

***

Bucky groggily opened his eyes and looked around. Nothing was familiar.

And the people were blue. So. That was new. One of these days, he was going to wake up and the world was going to make the same amount of sense it did when he went to sleep.

Someone moved into view and Bucky struggled to focus. Then he blinked. And blinked again. “Subby?” he asked, his voice weak and scratchy. “That you?”

Namor looked towards the ceiling and sighed, deeply. “It has been some time since I have allowed anyone such liberties, James.”

He scrubbed his face with one hand. “Didn’t I just see you last week?” he asked. His head was foggy and everything felt heavy.

“Give or take about 70 years.”

Bucky’s mind stalled at that. “70...what?”

Namor’s face was impassive. “Much has changed since you died, James.”

“Since I...died.”

“Yes.”

“So...are you like the god of the dead in addition to sea royalty? Any other titles I should know about?”

Namor sighed. “No.”

Bucky nodded. “Death didn’t take, then?” 

“You got better. More or less.” Namor nodded at his arm. Only when Bucky looked down and saw the bandages did he register the pain radiating through the mess of his left arm.

“The trap that threw you from the missile did quite a bit of damage,” Namor explained. “The water and your _unique_ nature saved you from further harm. If you had been carrying your sealskin, you likely could have healed completely. Now...well. My people have done what they could.”

Bucky bristled at Namor’s condescending tone. “Aw come on, Subby, we’ve been through this. You know why I can’t-”

“Stubborn as always, James.”

“Look who’s talking,” he muttered. The memory of the mission suddenly came flooding back. “The missle - New York - STEVE. What happened?”

Namor crossed his arms. “You’ll have much to learn about the world when you return to the surface, James. I’d suggest you find someone to help you navigate it.”

***

“JAAAAAANNNNEEEE!” Darcy yelled, running across the beach to greet her friend.

“Hey Darcy!” Jane waved. 

“Darcy!” Ian greeted with a giant smile. “I’d wave, but - you know.” He half shrugged as best he could with his hands full of Jane’s latest cobbled together bits of equipment.

“Hey hey hey,” Darcy smiled as she stopped in front of him. “Gimme some of that,” she instructed, taking some of the equipment out of his hands. “What is all this anyway?”

“Oh well, Doctor Foster has been -”

“Thingamajig 4.1,” Jane interrupted.

“Sweet.” Darcy and Jane grinned at each other. “So. Is working out of a lighthouse an upgrade from a car dealership?”

“Yes. Darcy, you would not _believe_ the data I can get out here.” Jane turned towards the lighthouse and started herding everyone inside.

“Yeah, about that - when you said your new lab was remote, I wasn’t exactly expecting...this.” Jane’s lighthouse was on an island off the coast. Darcy had to take a train, two buses, and a ferry to get here, on top of the hike from the dock where the ferry left her off. There were no cars on the island, no neighbors, no light pollution. It was pretty sweet - if one was into that sort of thing.

They got inside and Ian showed Darcy where to stow all of the equipment.

“What were you expecting?” Ian asked, eyeing Darcy carefully.

“I don’t know,” Darcy shrugged. “Not this. Not with Stark money.”

Jane shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah well. Stark’s great. But he’s pretty closely affiliated with SHIELD. So...this isn’t my main lab.”

Darcy felt her jaw drop a little in surprise and then her face split into a grin. “Look at you, going all secret lab. Is this your supervillain origin story? OH! Can I be your main henchwoman?”

“Hey!” Ian cried.

“You both are my minions and neither of you outranks the other,” Jane said, rolling her eyes fondly. “Now. Who wants lunch?”

***

Ian plopped down on the couch next to Darcy while Jane put their enchiladas in the oven.

“How have you been Darcy? How’s the Smithsonian treating you?”

“Pretty dang good, I have to say,” Darcy said. “This is a nice reprieve though - I’m swamped at the moment, getting ready for the Captain America exhibition opening.”

“Happy to provide the distraction then. But...you’re happy?”

“I am. I have to admit - I was a little worried, giving this up to go get a real job.”

“Worried I wouldn’t take proper care of Jane?” Ian teased.

“Nah,” Darcy said honestly. “I knew we were solid on that front.” She looked away from Ian and out the window towards the ocean. “I loved working with Jane. I didn’t understand what we were doing most of the time, but that was half the fun. It was bigger than us, in some pretty Earth-shattering ways. I was worried that anything else would just...feel so small.” She grinned to herself. “But I’m still doing something bigger than me. It’s just different.”

“I’m glad you’re happy Darcy,” Ian said after a moment. His gaze when unfocused for a second and then bored straight through her. She’d forgotten how unsettling that particular habit of his could be, and felt her heart warm at the familiar feeling. The two of them may not have worked as a couple, but Darcy still counted Ian among her closest and dearest friends.

“Lunch in 10 - don’t you two dare get to the good gossip without me!” Jane called.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Janey,” Darcy yelled back.

“Darcy,” Ian said quietly, his voice strangely insistent, “you would tell us if there was something...amiss? If you found something?”

She gave him a look. “Do I hide anything from you two?”

“There’s just something…” Ian’s eyes went focused again as his voice trailed off.

“What?” Darcy asked warily. 

Ian shook himself. “It’s probably nothing. Look, I’m...I’m going to send you a book, okay? Promise me you’ll read it?”

“I promise to _try_. Last book you sent me practically had me catatonic in minutes. You and I aren’t exactly at the same reading level, remember?”

“You’ll be able to read this one. I promise.”

Darcy nodded and returned her attention to the view out of the window. Her eyes caught on...something. She squinted and tried to focus on...whatever it was out there that didn’t quite belong.

Jane set the tray of enchiladas on the table. “Come and get it, folks! Lunch and gossip time.”

“Sure, Jane,” Darcy replied weakly, still focused on trying to figure out what she saw. She stood and slowly approached the window.

Ian got up and stood behind her. “What is it?” he asked quietly. “Did you see something?”

“I…” Darcy stared for another moment then snapped out of it. “I don’t know.”


	5. Chapter 4

Darcy snagged a glass of champagne off the tray with a smile at the server and took a long sip as she took in the scene around her. Her brief getaway to see Jane had really helped clear her head of the stress and the noise of the last few months getting ready for this night and now she felt like she could appreciate the gala without conflating its importance. Once upon a time, she would have reveled in this - being surrounded by the political elite, having the chance to network and talk politics, maybe drop a few truth bombs on the more misguided among them. Now she recognized it for what it was - a photo op. Not a single person here actually gave a shit about Steve Rogers or the exhibit. They only cared about been seen to care.

“Miss Lewis!” Steve Rogers called.

Well, okay, maybe one person cared. And even he was only here for the parts of the exhibit that weren’t about him.

“Captain, what did I tell you about calling me Darcy?” she grinned.

Steve gave her a wry smile. “If I remember correctly, the same thing I told you about calling me Steve.”

“Ahhh, yes well. We weren’t surrounded by every news outlet on the planet at the time,” she reminded him. “It only seems polite.”

“You don’t strike me as the type to particularly care,” Steve observed.

“Shhhh,” she teased. “You’ll blow my cover.”

Steve smiled, a genuine one that actually reached his eyes as he tugged at his bowtie. 

“Stop that, you’re all crooked now,” she admonished. She only just stopped herself from reaching out and straightening his tie, aware that almost every eye in the room was on them now. That wasn’t a photo she wanted showing up anywhere - not that she’d object to being associated with Steve Rogers, she was just overly cautious these days. Steve probably wouldn’t appreciate the tabloid speculation on his love life either. She would call them vultures, but that would be insulting to the birds.

“I’m not exactly...comfortable at these things,” Steve admitted quietly as he fixed his tie and ran a hand down the front of his suit.

She gave him an encouraging smile and waggled her eyebrows. “In need of a wingman? Say the word and I’ll happily report for duty.”

Steve’s smile grew wistful as his eyes flicked towards the James Barnes wall. “Haven’t had a proper wingman since the 40s.”

Darcy’s heart broke a little for him. “I’d be a poor substitute, I’m sure, but I’m willing to give it a shot if you like.”

Steve’s gaze moved back to her and his expression softened. “Thank you. But I think I’m okay.” He nodded at the wall. “Thank you for changing the display. Did the jacket make it to the archives alright?”

Darcy hoped her face didn’t betray her momentary panic. The jacket did not, as it happened, make it back to the archives just yet. It was still sitting in her office, waiting for her to have a spare second to breathe. “Tucked away,” she hedged. “Safe and sound.”

“Thank you.”

“Captain Rogers!” a voice called from a little ways away.

He sighed, looking resigned. “Duty calls.”

“If you need a rescue, give me the signal.”

He tilted his head. “What’s the signal?”

Darcy patted her head with one hand while rubbing circles on her belly with the other.

Steve laughed. “I’ll keep it in mind.” With a nod, he turned to go.

“Hey Steve,” Darcy called after him. He turned back to her. “If I don’t see you, have a great night, okay? Try to keep a bit of that smile going for me?”

Steve’s features softened just a little and he gave her a genuine smile. “I’ll try. Thanks, Darcy. Enjoy your night.”

She watched his face settle into his careful public mask as he turned to the others clamoring for his attention. Her champagne didn’t taste quite as delightful anymore and she drained her glass with a soft sigh. She glanced at her watch. How long did she _really_ need to stay?

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, if you think Rogers will give you the time of day, gorgeous.”

Darcy turned towards the voice with a frown. It’s owner was a tall, burly man, with a mean face and an entitled, hungry look in his eye. _Unsatisfied_ was the notion that immediately came to mind. He was, in a word, trouble - and decidedly not of the fun kind.

She was inclined to ignore him, but it was impossible to know if this guy was some rich bitch who had paid for the entire exhibit or something, so she mustered a polite smile. “And what tree might that be, Mr…?”

“Agent, actually,” he sneered, speaking more to her chest than her face. Darcy’s fingers itched for her taser. It was a rare occasion she allowed asshats like this to speak to her for this long. Something about this guy made the hair on the back of her neck stand up - and not in a good way. “Brock Rumlow. I’m with SHIELD.”

“Congratulations,” she replied, her flat tone belaying her polite expression.

Rumlow’s expression twitched in annoyance, but he quickly covered with a grin that was too feral to be charming. “And you are?”

“Darcy Lewis,” she replied, not extending a hand. “I’m with the Smithsonian.”

“Ah, Miss Lewis. You gave Rogers the grand tour.”

“And am on the team that put together the exhibition, yes.”

Rumlow stepped back so he was standing next to Darcy, facing the James Barnes display. He nodded at it. “Pity it was Rogers that survived, instead of Barnes, isn’t it?”

Darcy turned sharply. “Excuse you?” He had to have misspoken. 

Rumlow tilted his head, indicating his indifference to her shock, but didn’t elaborate or clarify. 

Darcy tamped down her anger so she didn’t do something drastic, like punch this asshole in the face. If he was SHIELD, Steve was probably working with him - hell, maybe Steve had _invited_ him. 

“Say,” Rumlow continued, as though Darcy wasn’t seething next to him, “what do you say to you and me taking a stroll?” He nodded at the display. “Maybe you could tell me more about this handsome guy, give me a private dissertation? Rumor has it, you are the expert on James Buchanan Barnes.” He said Barnes’ name with an odd sort of reverence that was extremely off-putting.

“You want to know more about James Barnes?” she deflected. Darcy had received her share of hamfisted offers for a semi-public hookup in her day, but this was simply pitiful. She would almost think he was actually after something other than a quickie in a coat closet. Either he was the worst secret agent ever or subterfuge wasn’t his specialty. She snuck a glance at him. He definitely looked like he preferred violence to deception.

“Maybe take a stroll through the archives,” Rumlow replied, his voice casual.

_Bingo. Get going while the going is good, Lewis._

“Well would you look at that. My boss is calling me. You want to know more about James Barnes? Make an appointment.” Without waiting for a reply, Darcy fled to the relative safety of the bar, where a few of her coworkers were lingering.

* * *

Bucky silently slipped in through the window. If Steve didn’t kill him on sight, they were going to have a conversation about home security. Immediately after their conversation about _bailing out_ of airplanes before _crashing them_.

The apartment was quiet and dark, but the air was fresh. Clearly, Steve had been regularly staying in this apartment instead of fleeing directly to New York and the safety of Stark Tower. At least the information from Namor had been that accurate. Now he just had to wait for Steve to come home.

He silently paced the apartment, looking around and trying his best not to touch anything. The place was...fine? It wasn’t what he would have pictured for Steve, but according to Namor Steve had been awake for a while. Maybe things had changed.

He paused at the bookshelf. Mostly history - military history, politics, that sort of thing. Where were the art books? He peeked into the bedroom to see if there was another shelf or a pile of books on a nightstand, but was disappointed. 

_What the hell, Steve. What happened to you?_

Not even an hour after he’d broken in, the door creaked open, spilling the light from the hall inside. Steve shuffled inside slowly, moving gingerly, as though he was hurt in some way. Bucky couldn’t tell if it was an affectation or not from this distance. Steve was in a tuxedo, slightly mussed. Interesting.

Steve stilled, then closed and locked the door, pulling off his jacket slowly. 

“Not much of value to steal, kid,” Steve sighed. “And I’d really prefer not to have to remove you from the premises. Can you just go out the way you came in and we’ll both pretend this didn’t happen?”

Bucky didn’t move. “Steve,” he said, his voice breaking a little. 

Steve looked at him, sharply. “Bucky?” he whispered, his face growing pale.

“Looks like you and me need to have a conversation about death not taking.”


	6. Chapter 5

“Darcy! Thank goodness!” Vera called. Darcy winced a little at her volume. It was too early to be that cheerful.

“Sup?” Darcy asked, taking a large sip of her latte. Her eyes fluttered a little behind the sunglasses she had yet to take off as she imagined feeling the caffeine hit her system. She was pretty proud that she was only sort of hungover. Adulthood was a good look for her. She was all responsible and shit.

The idea might be more convincing if she took the sunglasses off. 

Whatever. There had been a vodka fountain and she had needed to bleach the memory of Brock Rumlow from her skull. Things happen.

“There was a break in last night.”

Darcy blinked. “Uh. Huh?” 

_Coherence is your middle name this morning, isn’t it? Get your shit together, Lewis._

“I know! Someone went through all the archival storage for the Steve Rogers exhibit.”

Darcy sighed. That was so not good. Her not-a-hangover was quickly spiraling into a migraine. “Anything missing?”

“Not that we’ve found so far. We can’t tell what they might have been looking for, but whatever it was, it doesn’t look like they found it.”

“Well, that’s good.” Darcy mind flashed to the jacket she had stashed away, before dismissing the idea entirely. There was no way that someone had gone looking to steal that jacket the same day she’d taken it off display. There was no way anyone could have known it was even there to want to steal it. They had to have been after something else.

Still. If someone was poking around, maybe it would be best to get that jacket out of her office and stashed away a little more secure.

* * *

“Well well. We meet again.”

Darcy glanced up from her computer to find a scowling, mean-looking thug leaning in her doorway like he thought he owned the place and she immediately wished she was still wearing the sunglasses she’d abandoned when she arrived in her office. She was so not in the mood to be polite to Brock Rumlow.

“Agent Rumlow,” she bit out. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here about the break in.”

“Is that really the purview of SHIELD these days?” she asked. “Or is someone assigning you busywork?”

Anger flashed in his eyes and Darcy was suddenly reminded of a spoiled child. “Look-”

Her patience was already exhausted. “Come back with an appointment or a warrant or don’t come back at all. Means little to me either way, Agent Rumlow.”

His eyes widened and his fingers twitched. “You dare-”

“The only SHIELD minion I’ll talk to without a warrant is Phil Coulson. You,” she sneered at him, giving him a once-over with absolute disdain, “are not Phil Coulson. So run back to whatever jack-booted daddy you answer to and see about that warrant, or take a long walk off a short pier. It really doesn’t matter to me either way.”

* * *

Darcy wandered the exhibit in an effort to calm down, making a mental list of notes that was growing by the minute. This display was barely noticed by most people, that description caused confusion 62% of the time. She noted with some dismay that most people wandered right past the James Barnes display. 

“Have some respect, people,” she muttered.

“Who was he?”

The soft, unsure voice startled her. She spun around to find a scruffy man huddled in the shadow of the corner across from the display.

“Who was...James Barnes?” she asked tentatively. He nodded.

He had a ball cap tugged down low on his head so she couldn’t properly see his eyes, but she did the best she could to meet them. Normally, if they met on the street or anywhere besides her work, something like that might set her instincts alight. But she met plenty of people in this job, and while not all of them were nice, she’d never felt any reason for concern, Brock Rumlow notwithstanding. 

Besides, she’d wiped SHIELD’s servers of any and all information on both her and Jane ages ago - if anyone was looking, there was nothing to find.

So this guy could be as mysterious as he wanted. Darcy wasn’t going to begrudge him his anonymity. 

“How long do you have?” she teased. “I could talk about this guy all day.”

“I have all day,” he mumbled.

_Buddy, don’t encourage me._

“You’re in luck then.” She pointed to her name tag. “I’m Darcy. I put this display together.” 

He nodded, but didn’t offer a name in response. After a beat, she continued. 

“Are you looking for an overview? Or do you want the PhD-level dissertation?”

He shrugged. She didn’t let his lack of responses phase her.

“How about we start with the overview and go from there?”

He nodded. 

She took a step back to stand next to him and noted how he stiffened. She tried not to let on that she’d noticed and gestured to the display.

“James Buchanan Barnes. Born March 10, 1917. Grew up in Brooklyn, New York, oldest of four.” She rattled off a few more basic facts, and tried to gauge his reactions from the corner of her eye. He didn’t move - he barely blinked - but he listened to her attentively. It was a little heady, having this stranger’s laser focus centered on her. Most people, when they asked questions about the exhibit, tuned out after a few seconds. They got their answer and moved on. This guy though - Darcy got the strangest feeling that every word that came out of her mouth was life or death for him.

Which was ridiculous. She kind of liked it anyway.

“Where did you get,” he nodded at the display, “all this?”

“The information?” she asked.

“The items in the case,” he clarified, nodding again at the display. She noted that he had one of the exhibit programs crushed in his right hand, while his left stayed firmly in his pocket.

“Most of this was in his kit when he died. Just what was left on base,” she hurried to add. “His body was never found, so we don’t have anything that he would have been carrying during that last mission.”

“So it’s not…” his voice trailed off, cracking a little. She waited as he took a moment to compose himself. “It’s all real? These aren’t things that you had from...that time...you had an old deck of cards and put it here as something that he could have carried?”

“No way,” she said fervently. “If I’m telling you it was his, then it’s been confirmed to the best of our ability that exact deck of cards was owned and used by James Barnes.”

He turned a little toward her, a strange expression on his face. “How?”

“How...did we confirm?” He nodded. “For this particular display, I worked with Steve Rogers himself. James Barnes was his best friend after all. If he said that this book here belonged to Barnes, I’m inclined to believe him.”

“So that’s it? Steve Rogers says it, so it must be true?” There was a strange undercurrent of pain in his voice that Darcy couldn’t understand.

“I mean, he _is_ pretty well known for his honesty,” she grinned, “but we also know who saved all this and from where. We can verify the age. There’s a lot we can do beyond just trusting Steve Roger’s word.”

He nodded, looking a little less pained. “How...how did you get any of this?”

“Howard Stark had it boxed up and saved after Barnes’ death. A lot of what you’ll see around the entire exhibit came from Stark Industry archives.” She leaned a little closer and gave her stranger a grin. “If you ask me, Howard Stark was a little bit of a hoarder.”

Her stranger - funny how in only a few minutes he went from a scruffy dude to _her stranger_ \- blinked rapidly and pursed his lips.

“Of course,” she amended quickly, “if he hadn’t been, who knows where any of this would have ended up. Some of it might have been kept by the Barnes family, but we definitely wouldn’t have the size of the collection, nor would it have been in this condition.”

“Is this everything? Is this...all that’s left of him? Trinkets?” The pain in his voice made Darcy tear up a little. She had to fight down the urge to wrap him up in a hug and promise that she would make everything okay.

She refocused on the question as the leather jacket flashed through her mind. “We only have a portion of the collection on display at any given time,” she hedged. “Some things will be switched out occasionally, but others are far too delicate to be out on display like this.”

He nodded. “What will happen to those things?”

“We’ll preserve them as best we can.” She leaned a little closer, like they were sharing a secret. “I’m trying to drum up support for an online collection - we could photograph everything, including what’s not on display, for people who want to learn more or who can’t get to DC. So if that’s a thing that appeals to you, a note in the comment box would be appreciated.”

Her stranger frowned. “Where is everything now?”

“The archives. For now.” 

He nodded again. She wasn’t entirely sure he was satisfied with her answer, but it was all he was going to get out of her.

“Barnes family?” he asked so quietly she almost didn’t hear him.

“James Barnes was the oldest of four. It’s my understanding that he was closest to his younger sister Rebecca.”

“Becks,” he whispered, although she had to have misheard him.

“Sorry?”

He shook his head. “Thanks for your time,” he muttered and quickly left.

“Oh. Uh. Anytime!” she called after him.


	7. Chapter 6

Darcy tried to shake the feeling of eyes on her and told herself - _again_ \- that she was just being paranoid. No one was watching her. No one was following her. That creepy Rumlow guy hadn’t come back to question her again. There was no reason for anyone to ever suspect or assume that she knew anything more about SHIELD or the Avengers or Thor than what she might have seen on the news, which she didn’t watch because she was a busy professional on the hunt for a side hustle. Or whatever image she projected to the world that people chose to believe. Darcy could almost laugh at how spectuarly wrong they would be.

She just happened to be an entry-level librarian-wannabe that had an absurd security clearance. Nothing to see here. That was no reason to panic.

No reason at all.

* * *

Brock Rumlow was leaning against the stone wall as Darcy approached the museum entrance.

“Morning Darcy,” he said with a predatory grin, before taking a sip of coffee.

“Agent Rumlow,” she bit out as she passed. 

She was pretty sure his smug, low chuckle would haunt her for the rest of the day.

Okay. Maybe there was a tiny reason to panic.

* * *

Darcy swiped her card and punched in her access code to get into the storage area for the Steve Rogers exhibit, trying to get her shaking hands under control. The unease Rumlow had inspired that morning hadn’t gone away and she was at a complete loss at what else to do. Her instincts had never been wrong before. She threw up a desperate prayer to whatever passing deity might be listening that they weren’t wrong now as she walked the familiar route to the rack housing the boxes of artifacts that weren’t currently on display or in the restoration room. She opened the case and pulled out a box labeled _Col. Phillips_ , taking it to a nearby table and opening it up.

Inside, just where she’d stashed it the morning after the break in, was James Barnes’ brown leather jacket. The unsettled feeling in her stomach lessened a little at the sight of it, but her fingers still itched to touch it, to pull it out of the box and wrap herself up in it.

It was ridiculous. Rumlow was just a creep with a weird fetish for a long-deceased historical figure. His creepiness factor was not going to go down if she moved this jacket out of the archives and into her office.

Or into her purse to take home. Whatever.

Darcy groaned internally. She knew better than to handle an item like this so carelessly. Especially as it was already mislabeled and misfiled so no one who was looking would likely come across it. History forgive her if the thread holding it together disintegrated in the meantime.

That knowledge didn’t make the urge go away. It was almost as though the jacket were a tiny voice in her head, whispering in her mind.

_Hide me._

“I’m so getting fired for this,” she muttered. Before she could talk herself out of it, she shoved the lid back on the box, and pulled the box off the table. She shifted the box so she could carry it under her arm as she locked the rack back up and left the storage area. She quickly made her way back to her office and closed the door behind her. She stuffed the box underneath her desk, hiding it behind her recycling bin, then pushed her chair in, concealing the box entirely.

The tension in her chest finally released. For now.

“You’ve really lost it this time, Lewis,” she muttered to herself. She idly wondered if she was experiencing something along the lines of what Erik had - maybe it wasn’t Loki’s mind control. Maybe it was proximity to the duct-tape wonders Jane used to observe the universe. 

“Hey Darcy,” Vera said, leaning in the doorframe of Darcy’s office, causing Darcy to jump. “Were you headed out soon?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Darcy said brightly, covering her panic. Vera was a friend. Vera was not a threat. “I’ve got to get home to change - I have an invite to the super fancy ‘Congratulations On Not Being Dead’ party the Avengers are throwing Steve Rogers. Apparently, he did some daring-do recently and managed to not die or get himself frozen again.”

“Right,” Vera replied, looking uneasy. “So - ”

“Nothing you can say is gonna get me down today, Vera. Nothing. Because I have a great new dress, shoes that won’t hurt my feet, and-” Darcy pointed to her mouth “- do you see this lipstick? Come on. Admit it. I look _good_.”

“Darcy,” Vera said, a note of warning in her voice. “There’s been another break in.”

Darcy froze briefly, her good mood evaporating, despite her previous faith that nothing would get her down today. “Anything missing?” she asked, almost afraid to know the answer. If Vera said “James Barnes leather jacket” Darcy was so screwed.

Vera cringed. “I need your help to figure that out.”

Darcy sighed and slumped forward, bumping her forehead off her desk. “I’m not going to the super fancy ‘Congratulations On Not Being Dead’ party, am I?”

* * *

Hours later, Darcy sagged against the last rack of the Steve Rogers archive, exhausted. 

Nothing missing. Again. Well, nothing that she hadn’t hidden herself, anyway.

They’d gone through every rack, every cabinet, every crate, every box. There wasn’t a _pin_ out of place, let alone anything missing. Darcy had even cross-referenced the inventory with what had been stored in the archive the night of the first break-in. There was no discernible pattern to what the would-be thief could be looking for. The only explanation Darcy could think of was that this was a test for something else - someone was training to rob this museum the next time a valuable collection came in, or they were going to steal from a different museum at some point and was using their collection for practice.

She glanced at her watch - a gift from Jane when she’d finally finished her degree that she hadn’t quite appreciated in the moment and now felt naked without. She winced when she saw the time. It was far too late to try to get to the party now, and she was too tired anyway. A sigh escaped her - she didn’t know if she’d ever snag an invite to an Avengers party again, but she had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last ‘Congratulations On Not Being Dead’ party they’d throw for Steve Rogers. Maybe someone would remember her kindly in the future. Darcy would settle for someone not realizing she hadn’t made it to this party and thinking that she at least hadn’t made enough of a fool of herself to make an impression.

She looked around, dismissing those thoughts and still trying to puzzle out what their thief could possibly be looking for. In the first attempt the night of the gala, two heat sensors had gone off. Darcy would normally chalk that up to a bad batch of sensors or a bug in the security system, but the sensors were on opposite sides of the room and had been swapped out the week before. They’d run diagnostics anyway, but the fact that a few of the boxes were just a touch askew confirmed what they’d already known - someone had broken in.

This time, however, none of the sensors had tripped, no alarms had gone off. If it hadn’t been for one of the cleaning staff forgetting his headphones and actually seeing the thief, no one would have ever known. Their thief was getting better. The next time, they might never know anyone had been there at all.

Hell, for all Darcy knew, this thief could have been wandering through the archives every night. They could be here _now_. She chuckled to herself, a little deliriously - maybe they were just _really big_ fans of Steve Rogers and wanted to know every possible thing about him.

Darcy bolted upright at the thought. It was late and she was alone down here. If the thief did come back...There wasn’t any reason to believe the thief was violent. But there also wasn’t any reason to think they weren’t. People did strange things when they felt cornered. She picked herself up off the floor as quickly and quietly as she could and made sure she had everything she’d brought with her. 

Phone? Check.   
Keys? Check.   
Inventory list? Check.  
Taser? Sadly, no check. Baby Haikili had bit the dust a few weeks ago and she hadn’t quite figured out a way to covertly carry her new one yet. She should really get on that.

(Thor was still moping that she hadn’t named her taser for him, but Darcy maintained that she couldn’t possibly do so - Baby Haikili had _conquered_ Thor, and it would not be appropriate to name her taser for him, no matter how much he pouted at her. This was a hill she was prepared to die on.)

She was almost through the maze of racks and cabinets, working her way back to the elevator, when she heard papers fluttering to the floor. She froze. That wasn’t a sound she should be hearing down here. Especially not when she was alone.

Darcy slowly turned her head to look in the direction of the sound. Just to her left, standing between the stacks containing Steve Rogers’ family quilt and James Barnes’ dirty pulp novel collection, was a scruffy man in a dark ball cap. Darcy tried to keep her breathing steady, but wasn’t doing so well with it as her heart rate sped up.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she blurted out, wincing internally at the tremor in her voice.

The man stared at her. Or at least, he looked like he was staring. The ball cap was pulled down so low over his eyes it was hard to tell.

There was something familiar about this guy. Darcy chased down the feeling, scouring her memories for where she might have seen him before. And then - 

“You’re the guy!”

He stilled.

“From the other day, right? Let me ramble on about James Barnes?” she shifted, opening her posture a little, trying to signal that she wasn’t a threat. The last thing she wanted was this guy to bolt and knock her out on his way out the door.

“I remember you,” she continued. “It’s not often anyone lets me ramble the way you did. In fact, it’s not...ever.”

He lowered his head a little, no longer looking at her, and returned his attention to the papers in his hands.

From where Darcy was standing, she couldn’t make out exactly what he was holding, but based on the label on the box on the floor, she guessed it was something of Barnes’.

“I’m the expert on the guy, remember? I could talk about him all day?”

“I remember,” he replied, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him.

“Is there something specific you’re looking for? Maybe I can help.”

For a brief moment, she thought he was going to continue ignoring her. Then, slowly, he raised his head and met her eyes for the first time.

With a soft gasp, she stepped back. “Holy shit.”

He swallowed hard. “So it’s true then?”

Darcy’s heart hammered in her chest. “Is what true?”

“I died. The world forgot me. I got better.”

Darcy wanted to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Maybe she’d fallen asleep while checking the archives and this whole thing was just her imagination run away with her.

Then again.

“Well, I mean it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I’d ever seen.”

His lips twitched, like he wanted to smile but had forgotten how. “What would be the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen?”

She smiled despite herself. “Buddy, you _so_ don’t have the security clearance for that.”

Another twitch - closer to a smile this time, but not quite managing it. Darcy imagined that the James Barnes of 1945 might have said something like “Guess I gotta work on that, if I wanna learn all your secrets.” But the man standing in front of her said nothing, just wore a sad approximation of a smile.

How the hell at he survived? And how the hell was he standing in front of her now, looking not much older than photographs that were taken more than 70 years ago?

What the hell had happened to James Barnes?

“Darcy!” Vera’s voice called from the elevator. “You still down here?”

Darcy jumped and turned toward the elevator. “Yeah! Just finished - I’ll be right up!”

When she turned back James Barnes was gone.


	8. Chapter 7

“I don’t understand - you _saw_ it. At the Smithsonian.”

“Yes!” Steve hissed. “I asked that it be taken off display - I remember what you told me, way back when. That it wasn’t safe for anyone to know. I couldn’t take the risk that someone who knew what they were looking at would see it on display and start digging.”

“That’s great, I appreciate it,” Bucky replied, his voice carefully - and artificially - neutral. “I’m sure my multitudes of family appreciate it, too. That doesn’t answer the question of _where the fuck it is now_.”

“Your family really did reproduce like rabbits,” Steve muttered, as he looked over the list of known living Barnes relations.

“Steve! Focus!”

“Sorry.” Steve ducked his head a little, chagrined, then gave Bucky a tentative smile. “It’s a good thing though - your family was okay. After. I know you were worried.”

Bucky sighed. He didn’t quite have the energy to think about all the things he’d been worried about _before_ when he had an ever-increasing list of things to be worried about _now_.

“I’ll be happy about that later,” Bucky muttered. “Right now, just…” He sighed again. This wasn’t Steve’s fault. Arguing would get them nowhere. “Let’s go through the list again. Where else does the Smithsonian store their archived collection?”

Steve sighed. “Maybe we could just...ask Darcy.”

Bucky stared at him. “Ask Darcy.”

“Sure. She’s the person I worked with. I asked her to take it off display. She was the one who told me it was in the archive.”

“Steve...you left it in the care of...and it’s missing...you...I…” Bucky felt his throat close up.

“What?” Steve asked, his eyes wide with alarm.

Bucky tried to breathe, but there were spots in his vision and his skin felt like it was on fire. “My skin, Steve. Your ma told you the stories. If someone has purposely taken and hidden my skin...I’m trapped.”

* * *

Darcy hefted her bag so it sat a little more securely on her shoulder and adjusted her grip as she walked to the metro. Her fingers wrapped around her new taser as she tried to surreptitiously study her surroundings and control her breathing.

She only had a priceless historical artifact that she’d stolen from the Smithsonian hidden in her bag. No big deal. She really needed to get her head examined or something - she could not shake the feeling that a damn _jacket_ was _in danger_ and if she were anyone else, this would raise all kinds of red flags.

Maybe she should talk to someone about her sudden increase in paranoia.

But could she trust anyone with her sudden increase in paranoia?

Darcy shook the thought away. That was a spiral she could go down once she was safely locked in her apartment. She tensed as movement in the periphery of her vision caught her eye and - 

“Lewis,” a voice growled in her ear.

She swung back blindly, her elbow making contact with the owner of the voice. 

There was a yelp of surprise from Brock Rumlow as he reeled back from the force of the blow. Darcy took off running, slamming her hand on the emergency call box button as she passed. 

_“The number you have dialed is no longer in service.”_

“Oh for fuck sake!” 

Darcy focused on running, mentally cheering her decision to wear flats this morning as she kept her grip on her bag. She hit the button the next emergency box along the path. 

_“The number you have dialed is no longer in service.”_

Darcy hated DC. She kept running.

Rumlow jumped out in front of her. “Where you goin’ sweetheart?”

She pulled her brand new taser from her pocket and aimed. Rumlow knocked her arm away before she could pull the trigger. 

“Aw don’t be like that, Lewis,” he chuckled darkly, advancing on her. “Just give me what I want and then we can have a little fun, huh?”

She barrelled into him, knocking him off balance and punching him in the balls, then aimed the taser at him again. She pulled the trigger as soon as he hit the ground. Once he was twitching, she took off, and didn’t look back.

Her lungs were burning with the effort of running - she didn’t exactly hit the treadmill carrying a giant purse filled with stuff all that often. She might want to rethink that, clearly. The entrance to the Metro was just ahead. Hopefully, there would be other people on the platform and the train would only be a minute out of the station. If her luck held out.

If not, well. She would deal with that when the time came.

Just as she reached the Metro entrance, she slammed into someone at full speed and was knocked backwards. She overbalanced and fell flat on her back, knocking the wind out of her. She wheezed and rolled to the side as she struggled to climb to her feet. She snatched the strap of her bag and pulled it over her shoulder as she glanced back at whatever asshole she rammed into.

“Wait,” he wheezed, rolling to his feet as well. “Wait.”

Darcy’s brain stuttered to a stop. “Barnes?” she hissed. 

He nodded. “Darcy.”

Darcy looked back over her shoulder to see if Brock had resumed chasing her then turned back and grabbed James’ hand. “Shit - we’ve got to hide you!”

“What?”

She didn’t respond, too busy running down the steps to the Metro so they could jump on the train she heard approaching the platform. She ran her card over the reader, then shoved Barnes in front of her and pressed herself to his back so she could gate-jump the fare. The transit officer yelled for them to stop as she shoved him onto the train.

“Don’t look back!” she hissed at him, pushing him forward, closer to the back of the car.

“I have fare-jumped, before, you know.”

“Well, how would I know that?” she snapped.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the expert on me?” he asked, as they slid into a seat and the train pulled away, his voice lightly teasing.

“Yeah well, your pulp novel collection didn’t exactly offer insight into your thoughts on transit theft.” She sighed and slumped into the seat. “What are you doing here anyway?”

He shifted in his seat and Darcy tried not to notice how warm he was or how adorable he looked when he bit his lip. Nope, wasn’t noticing any of that at all.

It had to be the adrenaline, right? Fight or fuck? That was a thing, wasn’t it?

“You breaking into my museum again?” she asked when he took just a little too long to respond.

He cleared his throat and looked away from her. “Maybe.”

“You could just make an appointment, you know.” She winced. “Or you used to - I don’t know if I’ll be able to go back, now.”

He looked at her sharply and furrowed his brow. “Why?”

“Did you see the guy who attacked me?”

Barnes startled, just a little. “Some guy attacked you?” he growled.

“Oooh protective, I like it. I tased him, it slowed him down a bit. We should probably not go back to my apartment though.” She thumped her head back against the back of the seat. “I think he’s after you. Or - he wants to know about you, so he’s after _me_. Since you’re, you know, dead to most people.”

“Who is this guy? What the hell would he want with me?”

Darcy looked around the train surreptitiously. “I don’t really want to talk about it here,” she murmured. “Let’s figure out where we’re gonna go.”

“We’ll go to Steve’s,” he offered simply, as though it were the most obvious solution in the world.

That.

That would work. Darcy would take Captain America as a bodyguard any day. She might actually sleep tonight if she was crashing on Steve Rogers’ couch.

“Is Steve going to knock us out with that frisbee of his or does he know that you’re back in the neighborhood, so to speak?”

He grinned a little. “I’ve been staying with him.”

“Oh. Good.” She leaned into him a little, feeling significantly safer in his presence. Not that she couldn’t handle herself - she’d faced down foes much scarier than the typical monster under the bed, after all. It was just that thugs like Rumlow were a bit more immediate, the threat that much more visceral than the gods and monsters she’d seen with Jane.

James Barnes was none of those things. He was...well, he was certainly lovely to snuggle up to, that was for sure. But he also exuded _safety_ , like nothing could touch her when he was around to protect her. 

First jackets that whispered to her that they were in danger, now spontaneous strong attachments to virtual strangers. She really needed to get her head examined.

In the meantime, however, she did have one way she could repay him for the semi-rescue. If she could figure out how to explain it.

“So...this might be a little weird.”

He looked at her in confusion. “What might be a little weird?”

She dug through her bag, then looked at him. “I believe this belongs to you.” She pulled the jacket out of the bag and held it out to him. 

His eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw the jacket and she grinned. “Welcome home, James Barnes.”


	9. Chapter 8

_~*1943*~_   
_“This is yours.”_

_Bucky blinked as he accepted his sealskin from Steve. “This...how did you get this?”_

_Steve grinned at him. “You didn’t notice I was wearing it the entire hike here?”_

_The look on his face must have given Steve his answer. And really - how was that even possible? How did he not notice that Steve had been wearing it? He vaguely remembered thinking that there was something off - that Steve was soaked in Bucky’s own magic, but he’d assumed he’d been imagining things._

_Clearly not. Steve had been wrapped up in Bucky’s sealskin for days - potentially weeks. No wonder he reeked of magic._

_Bucky must have been silent for far too long as he sorted out the thoughts in his head. Steve’s grin slipped into a careful frown as he made his admission. “Rebecca gave it to me.”_

_Bucky sighed and ran his fingertips over the leather. “Of course,” he muttered. “Thanks for getting it to me.”_

_“Oh yeah, that was the point of all this, you know. Getting you your damn jacket back.”_

_“It’s a great jacket,” Bucky deflected. Even with as much practice as he’d had over the years, referring to his skin - to part of him - as something as mundane as a jacket burned inside of him._

_Steve grinned at him. “I’ll catch up with you in a bit, okay?”_

* * *

“Welcome home, James Barnes.”

“Bucky,” he corrected, automatically, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

“Bucky,” she replied, her grin softening, as though she were touched to be extended the privilege of using his nickname, still holding out his sealskin. 

He blinked down at it, afraid to reach out and touch it, lest it disappear and all this turn out to be a dream. 

“I happened to have it with me tonight,” Darcy explained, her voice halting. 

_Get it together, Barnes._

“I should thank you, really. I think it brought me some luck.” She pressed the soft leather into his hands. “Now that you have it back, maybe it’ll share the luck with you.”

“Darcy,” he breathed, unable to think or form coherent sentences. He’s overwhelmed with joy and relief at the feel of his sealskin at his fingertips after so long, but there’s still _something_ itching at his mind.

Bucky blinked down at his sealskin, still far too stunned at actually _finding_ it again to revel or rejoice at the reunion. Part of him, buried so far deep within him that he barely registered its existence anymore, was _screaming_ to run outside, wrap himself in his skin, and fling himself into the sea away from these terrible humans, leaving them to their cruelty. Despite the damage to his arm, with his skin he finally could swim all the way to Atlantis and throw himself at Namor’s mercy, see if his old friend would allow him sanctuary among the Atlanteans, a refugee from the cold surface world. Subby would do that for him, wouldn’t he? Bucky would even consider stopping the use of the nickname - for awhile anyway.

Another part - a much larger part - reminded him of the good humans he knew. 

Namely Steve, but still. There had to be others here in the future. Right?

Could he add Darcy to that tiny list? Just a few hours ago, he’d been terrified of her intentions. Steve had left the skin in her care, believing Bucky to be long dead, and then it was suddenly missing. He had spent his entire life terrified of someone stealing it, hiding it, and trapping him. Now, when all of his worst fears seemed to be manifesting, Darcy Lewis did the unexpected. She returned his sealskin. She had done as she’d promised and kept it safe - and was now relinquishing the power she held over him voluntarily.

What had happened before the war was one thing. Bucky had given Rebecca his skin for safekeeping while he was overseas. When Steve had shown up at Rebecca’s door, a half-step away from death, the serum burning the life out of his veins, Rebecca had done the only thing she could - wrap Steve in Bucky’s magic and save his life. Bucky’s sealskin had been given to Steve first in generosity and charity. Rebecca hadn’t been hiding Bucky’s skin and Steve hadn’t stolen it. That was _family_. Rebecca was family by blood. Steve was family by choice, but no less family for the lack of shared ancestry.

Darcy, well.

Darcy was not family.

Darcy was _human_. Everything in his history, everything he knew about himself and his kind, everything in his entire being screamed that she’d found his sealskin and hidden it.

He belonged to her.

But...she’d also given it back. She set him free. She wasn’t the selfish humans from the history of his kind, who sought to ensnare and trap selkies for their own purposes. This wasn’t the first time she’d done it either - she didn’t raise the alarm when she’d found him breaking into the museum, she didn’t tell anyone that she’d seen him. She kept his secrets and kept him safe. 

Now though - now _Darcy_ needed to be kept safe.

Some of the old stories - not the ones from the elders, warning him away from humans; the other stories, like Steve’s ma used to tell - they said that Darcy had essentially just proposed marriage. Was that - that couldn’t be - but what if -

Bucky’s head ached from the emotion and confusion. He had no frame of reference for this and no family left to turn to, no one he could ask. _Maybe_ Namor would know and _maybe_ he would share that knowledge if Bucky asked nicely. But more than likely Namor would only have the same scraps of knowledge Bucky had - selkies guarded their secrets too jealously for even Atlantean royalty to be privy to them.

“Hey Bucky?” Darcy asked as the train lurched to a stop. “Can you direct me here? I don’t know where Steve lives, so I don’t even know if we’re on the right train.”

“Oh.” Bucky’s hands tightened around his sealskin as he finally dragged his eyes away from it and looked at the map posted above their heads. “I think we’re okay - another three stops.”

“Look at you, conquering the Metro,” Darcy said with a smile. 

Something inside Bucky perked up and preened at the praise, but he didn’t reply. Three stops later, he grabbed Darcy’s hand and led her off the train and back into the night. 

They were a few steps outside of the station when Darcy suddenly shuddered violently and wrapped her arms around herself.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I think the adrenaline is wearing off.”

Bucky squeezed her hand. “Nah,” he replied casually, charm oozing out of him easily. “It’s a little chilly for the time of year.” Before he could think about it - because he really did not want to think about his reasons for doing so - he wrapped his sealskin around Darcy’s shoulders, then wrapped an arm around her, tucking her into his side as they continued walking. Steve’s apartment wasn’t far from the station and he would be with her the entire time. It wasn’t relinquishing his skin. It _wasn’t_. She was just cold and he was helping. That was _all_.

Darcy gave a little sigh of relief as she snuggled into his side. “This thing is far too cozy to be legal.” She bit her lip, looking like she was weighing her next words carefully. “I’m sorry if I’m...being overly familiar. It’s strange - I feel like I know you. I know I don’t,” she added hurriedly, “but -”

“It’s okay,” he interrupted, as he opened the door to Steve’s building and motioned for Darcy to head for the stairs. “It’s kinda nice, actually. Having someone else who knows. I don’t know what I’ll do long term, but in the meantime…” he shrugged. “It’s nice.”

They reached Steve’s floor and Bucky fumbled a little with the keys, before unlocking the door. Why did Steve have so many locks? 

“That was fast, I wasn’t expecting - oh.” Steve stopped short at the sight of them, having moved into the entry from wherever he’d been waiting for Bucky to return. His eyes moved quickly from Bucky to Darcy and only widened slightly when he noticed the leather around Darcy’s shoulders.

“Apparently, I’ve missed something,” Steve said, his tone flat.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “It’s been a bit of a night.”

“Sorry to crash,” Darcy said, apologetic. “I ran into some trouble.”

“Ran _from_ some trouble,” Bucky muttered.

Steve looked at Darcy in concern. “Who were you running from?”

Darcy hesitated, glancing between Steve and Bucky. “Um…well…”

Steve’s brow furrowed. “What is it?”

She sighed. “It was Brock Rumlow,” she muttered.

Bucky looked to Steve, who wore a carefully blank expression, but Bucky recognized the tell. Steve was shocked at the admission and more than a little worried.

“You’re sure?” Steve asked.

“Positive.”

“Let’s go into the other room and sit down,” Bucky suggested. “This sounds like it might take awhile.” They moved into the living room. Darcy sat down next to Bucky, practically pressed against him and that little voice inside preened again at the attention. 

“Who’s Brock Rumlow?” Bucky asked, once they were all seated.

“He’s with SHIELD,” Steve replied quietly. “Darcy, do you have any idea why he might have done this?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly. I first met him at the opening night party. He gave me the creeps.” She shuddered a little and wrapped her arms around her middle before looking to Bucky. “He wanted to know about you.”

Bucky started in surprised. “Me?”

“Yeah. Said it was a shame that Steve lived instead of you. Tried to get me to take him to the archives. I thought, at the time, it was just a really clumsy way of trying to get in my pants, but now…” Her voice trailed off and she stared at the wall for a moment before looking back to him. “How many times did you break into the archives? Besides the time I found you?”

Bucky felt Steve’s eyes slide to him and he cringed internally. He hadn’t exactly mentioned that he’d been spotted. “Only one other time.”

Darcy nodded. “There were three break ins that I knew about - the two that were you, apparently, and one other.”

Steve coughed. “When was the other?”

“The night of the party.”

Steve’s cheeks flushed slightly. “That was me,” he muttered. 

Darcy gaped at him. “Why?”

Bucky cut him off before Steve could say anything. “Probably to see if he could.” Steve didn’t look at Bucky, the rising flush on his neck told him that Steve understood.

“So do you think Rumlow never got into the archives?” Darcy asked.

“Doesn’t mean he won’t try,” Steve replied. “Buck - maybe you should stick with Darcy for awhile. Until we figure this out.”

Darcy looked at Steve in confusion. “Not that having this handsome guy around all the time wouldn’t be nice and all, but if Rumlow is after me to learn about Bucky, wouldn’t having Bucky stick with me kinda be sweetening the pot?”

Bucky’s heart soared at her off-handed praise as Steve shook his head. “At the moment, I’m not sure we have another choice. I’m already inside SHIELD with Rumlow, so I’m in the best position to figure out what the hell he’s doing. And I know I’d feel better if there was someone with you, Darcy. Unless you want to stay inside here for -”

“Bodyguard is fine!” Darcy replied quickly and looked to Bucky. “You any good at the protection gig?”

“You doubt me?” he teased, and then mentally kicked himself. They just met and she’d had a rough night - he should _not_ be in a flirting mood. He blamed his nature. He could do that, right? He wasn’t responsible for his actions if the damn sea-creature part of him was looking at Darcy and screaming _wife_.

That was a whole other set of issues for another time.

“I dunno, depends on what you’ve been doing the last 70 years,” Darcy shot back with a grin.

“There’s no one on Earth I trust more than Bucky,” Steve said. “You’re in good hands.”

“Promises, promises, Cap,” Darcy said. “I don’t know if I should go back to work though. Or if I even want to.” She rubbed her arms a little and the sealskin wrapped around her shoulders slipped off, pooling in a heap between her back and the couch.

Bucky adjusted it, moving it back to her shoulders and setting it there a little more securely. Darcy gave him a smile of thanks and his heart stuttered. He blinked a few times, then looked to Steve. “Can that SHIELD badge get this Rumlow in pretty much anywhere?”

Steve gave Bucky a look that suggested they would be having quite the conversation later, then nodded. “If he can come up with a feasible enough story, yeah. Most people wouldn’t question it.”

“You think you can come up with a reason for me to be with you at work?” Bucky asked Darcy.

“I can’t guarantee you wouldn’t be recognized - I work on the Captain America exhibit, remember? These people know you.”

“That’s...not ideal,” Bucky admitted and looked helplessly at Steve. “We can’t ask her to give up her life.”

“We can’t risk her safety,” Steve countered. “What do you want to do, Darcy?”

Darcy leaned into Bucky and he tentatively put an arm around her shoulders. Loosely, just barely touching, so she didn’t feel any more trapped than her current circumstances made her.

He was looking after his sealskin. That was _all_.

“I walked out of there today knowing I might not ever walk back in.” She sighed. “It’s why I took anything important out of my desk,” she continued, nodding at her bag by the door. “I probably can’t go back to my apartment, huh?”

“I can go, get anything you need,” Steve said.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “If this guy has been watching her work, he’s got to be watching her home, too. And Steve, I gotta tell ya, you don’t exactly know the meaning of the word ‘stealth.’ _I’ll_ go.”

“Buck, if he’s looking for you -”

“He’s not - he doesn’t know I’m alive. And anytime a mission called for covert breaking and entering, who did you send?” Bucky reminded him.

“Only because you fit in the air vents,” Steve countered.

Darcy snorted with laughter, then quickly schooled her features to cover her grin. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Guys, it’s fine. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to up and run and there’s nothing in my apartment that can’t be replaced. With any luck, you’ll have this figured out in a few days anyways. But I am not planting myself on your couch for the foreseeable future.”

“Darcy-”

“That’s not-”

She held up a hand. “I’ve got somewhere to go. You can come too,” she offered to Bucky.

“Where?” Steve asked.

Darcy grinned. “Somewhere SHIELD will never find.”


	10. Chapter 9

“Good night, Darcy!” Steve said, cheerily waving at her as she entered the guest room to retire for the night. She gave Steve a strange look, glanced at Bucky who shrugged, then closed the door behind her.

Steve turned to Bucky. “What the _fuuuuucccckkkk_?”

Bucky let out a rather undignified whine as he practically ran to the living room and collapsed onto the couch.

“Bucky, what the hell are you doing?” Steve hissed, following him.

Bucky gulped a breath. “I think I got selkie married.”

_“What?!?”_

“I don’t know,” Bucky replied, his head in his hands, muffling his words. He looked up at Steve. “It’s like...she had my skin. She’d hidden it. _And then she gave it back._ I didn’t have to find it or steal it or anything. She gave it back of her own free will.”

Steve stared at him. “What does that mean?”

Bucky shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know. My parents died before they could explain any of this stuff to us and I always figured that I had time to figure it out after the war.” He looked at the sealskin in his hands. “I don’t know,” he whispered again, thinking that maybe if he repeated it often enough, maybe it would be true. That what his heart was screaming at him was just his imagination. “I was supposed to have _time_. I just...I don’t know.”

“Buck-”

“She’s freedom,” Bucky said suddenly, as the thought struck him. “She didn’t trap me. She protected me and then set me free.”

Steve hesitated. “I thought it was humans who saw selkies as freedom.”

Bucky whimpered a little and buried his face in his sealskin, hiding his confusion. 

“I belong to her, Steve. She may have hidden this, but she _gave it back_. She never stole it, she never tried to intentionally keep it from me. I...she...she’s important.”

Steve looked uneasy. “Bucky, the way you’re talking, you almost sound like…” His voice trailed off. After a moment, he cleared his throat and spoke again. “Are you sure that this isn’t just relief at getting it back?”

Bucky knew what Steve was getting at, but didn’t quite say. “I’m not human, Steve,” he reminded him. “It doesn’t work the same way.”

“So this is what love is for a selkie?” Steve asked, clearly trying to keep the skepticism out of his voice but failing.

“No,” Bucky replied. “No, of course not. But I think it might be the start for me.”

* * *

Bucky turned over again, sleep still elusive. He stilled, listening for any movement inside the apartment. All was quiet.

He sighed, silently threw the covers back, and got up. He crept down the hall to the other guest room where Darcy was sleeping. The door was open slightly and Bucky peeked in. Darcy was on her side, hugging her pillow and softly snoring. Bucky nudged the door open a little wider and crept inside, ignoring the voice in his head that told him he was being creepy, watching her sleep like this.

Before he could think to much about what he was doing, he softly tucked his sealskin around her and ghosted a kiss across her temple.

“Thank you for keeping it safe,” he breathed. “Thank you for keeping _me_ safe.”

* * *

_“Hey Steve,” Bucky said, trying desperately to keep the nerves out of his voice, “can I talk to you for a second?”_

_Steve nodded, still staring in the other direction, before visibly shaking himself out of his stupor. He bid a quick goodbye to Howard, before following Bucky outside._

_“Peggy just shot at me,” Steve complained._

_“You probably had that one comin’, pal,” Bucky replied. “I’ll assume Private Lorraine lookin’ so smug had nothin’ to do with it?”_

_“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Steve mumbled. “So what’s going on?”_

_Bucky motioned for Steve to follow him into the tent. Once safely hidden inside, Bucky took a deep breath to settle his nerves._

_Everything was going to be okay. This was Steve. Everything was going to be just fine._

_“I got somethin’ to tell ya.”_

_Steve looked at him with concern. “What’s going on, Buck?”_

_“I haven’t...I haven’t been completely honest with you.”_

_Steve didn’t outwardly react. “Okay.”_

_“But I think you should know...I really can’t take the secrets anymore.” He sighed. “You know that leather jacket of mine? The one Becks gave you?”_

_“Sure,” Steve replied, his voice laced with confusion. “You’ve had it for as long as I’ve known you. I’ve seen it a thousand times. I probably know it as well as you do.”_

_Bucky let out a bitter chuckle. “No, Stevie. You really probably don’t.” He sighed, closed his eyes briefly, then bit the bullet. “It’s not a jacket.”_

_“It’s...not?”_

_“No.”_

_“Buck, are you feeling okay? Need to see the doc or something? Maybe you should lie down, I can talk to-”_

_“Steve!” Bucky interrupted. “I’m fine. I just....” he pulled at his hair in frustration, mussing it beyond repair as he sat down on the cot._

_Steve raised his hands in surrender. “Hey - okay. It’s okay. I’m sorry, I’m listening, I promise. What’s going on?”_

_“It’s not a jacket,” Bucky mumbled. “It’s…”_

_Steve hesitantly put a comforting hand on Bucky’s back._

_“It’s my skin.”_

_Steve blinked. Then blinked again. “I’m gonna need a little more information.”_

_“It’s my skin,” Bucky repeated a little more clearly. “I put it on...and...look, you gotta realize, I’ve never spoken to anyone about this before, okay? At least, not anyone who didn’t already know. I’ve never had to explain it.”_

_“Explain...your skin.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_There was a look in Steve’s eye that Bucky couldn’t decipher. “I promise to listen and try to understand. However long that takes.”_

_Bucky felt the pressure in his chest release. “Maybe...maybe it would be better just to show you.”_

_“Show me...your skin?”_

_Bucky rolled his eyes. “What it can do.” He got up and grabbed his skin from the end of the cot, where he’d hidden it under his blanket, then stood in front of Steve. He threw the skin around his shoulders and adjusted it just so and then -_

_“HOLY SHIT!” Steve yelped. “Bucky, you’re a seal!”_

_The seal slapped at Steve’s legs and glared at him._

_“Sorry, sorry,” Steve said, lowering his voice. “Don’t just do that to a guy though. Hell.”_

_Suddenly, Bucky the human was standing in front of Steve again._

_“I’m a selkie, not a seal, you asshole,” he snapped._

_Steve’s jaw dropped. “That’s what you’re annoyed about? Excuse me, did your best friend just drop a world-altering fact in your lap? Pardon me for getting the minutiae of the terminology wrong.”_

_“I’m a selkie!” Bucky hissed. “Not some animal! It’s an entirely different thing!”_

_“Sorry, sorry!”_

_Bucky sat down heavily next to Steve. “You’re taking this better than I thought you would.”_

_Steve shrugged. “It’s not like I’d never heard of it. Ma used to tell me selkie folktales all the time. They were my bedtime stories growing up.”_

_Bucky nodded, sadly. “I always had a feeling your ma suspected.”_

_They sat in silence for a moment, both lost a little in thoughts of the past._

_“Did Zola find out?” Steve asked quietly._

_“God. I don’t know. I hope not.”_

_Bucky could see Steve’s inner tactician at work. “Worst case scenario if he did?”_

_Bucky was quiet. There were quite a few things that Zola could do with that information - not the least of which was come after Bucky. But if Zola had figured it out, Bucky’s entire family could be in danger now._

_“I should write home. Tell Becks to keep her head down. Just in case.”_

_“Rebecca?” Steve asked, a little stunned. “Oh. Yeah. I guess...I mean...was everyone - or. Oh. Oh no - which of your folks-”_

_“Not really my place to tell you that, Steve,” Bucky interrupted quietly._

_“They could be in danger, Buck.”_

_He sighed. “I know.” He grimaced. “No skin-stealing or hiding in my family. Both of my parents were selkiefolk.”_

_“There a lot of that happening in Brooklyn?” Steve asked wryly._

_“More than you know.” He paused, then amended, “Less than you think.” He studied Steve’s face. “You’re taking this really well.”_

_Steve shrugged. “Like you said - my ma probably suspected. I’d been hearing selkie stories almost from the day we met until the day she passed. And besides - it’s not all that strange.”_

_“Really.” Bucky’s voice his flat, he can hear it. But Steve’s easy acceptance is still a bit unbelievable._

_“Buck. Look at me. I’m a science experiment. If I’d written to you all those months ago and told you what happened, would you have believed it without seeing it?”_

_“That’s...that’s true.”_

_“I just figured...well. After we caught back up-” Bucky choked a little at Steve referring to their escape from the Hydra labor camp as getting “caught back up.” Steve made a non-committal noise in the back of his throat. “Didn’t think you and I had any secrets left.”_

_Bucky’s heart broke a little at the look on Steve’s face. “This was the last one,” he reassured._

_“Kind of a big one.”_

_“You understand why, though, don’t you?”_

_Steve waved him off. “It wasn’t just you. It affected your whole family. I get it.”_

_“Yeah…” Bucky’s voice trailed off as he felt his anxiety rise again. “And...those stories of your ma’s...they ever go into anything...specific...about male selkies?”_

_Steve’s face scrunched up in confusion. “I don’t think so? What do you mean?”_

_“Male selkies, we’re...well we’re very desirable to the unsatisfied. And pal, I gotta tell ya, you’re the most dissatisfied person I’ve ever met. Or you were anyway.” Bucky ignored the way Steve shook his head and kept talking. If he didn’t say it now, he’d never say it. “I was afraid that if you knew...it would change things. That maybe...I don’t know, you’d either try to trap me or walk away entirely. I don’t know which would have been worse.”_

_“You really thought I’d do that?” Steve asked, his voice filled with undisguised hurt._

_“I never said the fear was rational. But it was real. You and Becks are the only people I’ve got in this world. Couldn’t stand the thought of losing you.”_

_“Well, let me reassure you. I do not now, nor will I ever, have any interest in stealing your pelt-”_

_“Skin,” Bucky corrected._

_“- and hiding it, or trapping you, or abandoning you, or any other of the hundred things you might be thinking. You’re my brother - maybe not by birth or by blood, but by any measure that matters, you’re my family. And I love you. But selkie or not, I’m not sure there’s a power on this earth that could make me fall in love with you.” Steve’s grin turned evil. “Honestly, the amount of fish you eat - it should have been a clue and it is absolutely a turn off.”_

_Bucky shoved him lightly, feeling lighter than he could remember feeling in years, the grin splitting his face growing. He should probably be a little insulted - he was desirable, thank you very much, Mr. Captain Stars and Stripes, irrespective of how many fish he ate. In reality, he was just relieved._

_“Yeah, where were you on that one, huh? All the evidence in front of you and you never once suspected selkie.”_

_Steve laughed and shoved Bucky back, good naturedly._

_“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, Steve,” Bucky said._

_Steve shook his head. “Now, before, later, never. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t change a thing.”_

_“Family,” Bucky said, nodding in understanding._

_“Family.”_

* * *

Darcy woke with a start. That had to be the most oddly specific and vivid dream she’d had in a very long time. Even now, the scent of the ocean hung in the air, almost as though -

She looked down. Well, that explained the scent. She was somehow wrapped up in Bucky’s jacket again.

_What the hell?_

“Bucky,” she murmured, tracing the seams of the jacket with a smile. The idea that he’d checked in on her, making sure she was comfortable warmed her heart. Had it been anyone else, she might have been creeped out - who watches someone while they were sleeping? - but with Bucky, it just felt...good.

Her phone buzzed under her pillow. She grabbed it and opened the message app, grinning at Jane’s response.

_Make it a weekend. Vodka tonight, tequila tomorrow._

That settled that then. She and Bucky would be all clear to head for Jane’s lighthouse observatory in the morning. 

Which was...depressingly soon, Darcy realized as she glanced at the time. She snuggled back under the covers with a sigh. She hesitated for half a moment, then pulled the jacket back around her as well, falling back asleep with the scent of sea water in her nose and dreamed of a sun drenched shore.


	11. Chapter 10

Darcy stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing her tired eyes, following the blissful scent of fresh-brewed coffee. Steve was nowhere to be seen, but Bucky was sitting at the counter, flipping through the newspaper and sipping from a mug and looking far, _far_ too tempting for her half-asleep brain to deal with and she had to bite back a whimper.

Did she kick puppies in another life or something?

“Coffee’s hot,” he said as she stood in the doorway, staring blankly at the coffee pot. Darcy’s one awake brain cell stopped her from voicing her thoughts aloud and replying “You’re hot.” Bucky grinned at her and she wondered just _how many_ puppies she’d kicked in a previous lifetime to deserve such torture. It had to be in the double digits. “You’re not much of a morning person, are you?” he teased.

She gave a half-hearted grunt in his direction in response. He laughed softly and slid out of his seat to approach her. With his hands on her shoulders, he guided her to the counter and deposited her on a chair. He grabbed a mug from the cabinet and filled it with coffee.

“How do you take it?”

“Cream. Just enough.”

He doctored the coffee to her liking, then slid it towards her. Darcy grabbed the mug and took a long, fortifying sip.

“Bless you,” she muttered, then took another gulp, willing the coffee to wake her up faster. She looked to Bucky, who was watching her with a soft look in his eyes that she couldn’t quite define. It was a fond look, one that her tired brain classified as “stupid in love,” but that one pesky and mostly awake brain cell was working overtime and reminded her that they’d only just met. 

Love at first sight was totally not a thing.

Right? Right. Just because her fisherman grandfather decided that the woman he met on one of his sails was going to be his wife pretty much the moment they met, didn’t mean a thing. That kind of lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same family.

She took another sip of coffee. “Do I have time to make myself a little more human before we leave?”

“All the time in the world. Steve and I mapped it out last night. Even with the route we’ll be taking, we’ll get there before dark.”

“Sweet.” She pouted into her empty mug for a moment, then slid off her chair to join him at the coffee maker. She refilled her mug, then set it on the counter. Before she could think further about it, she reached up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. 

“You are magic, good sir,” she grinned. Then she shrugged out of his jacket and held it out to him. “Thanks for this, by the way. Again”

Bucky stared at her frozen. After a moment, he blinked and looked down at the jacket, but made no move to take it from her.

Mornings were rough on everyone. Darcy reached back to set the jacket on the chair.

“I’m going to go clean up. I’ll be ready to go in a few!”

* * *

Darcy grinned as the lighthouse came into view. “Here we are,” she said, nudging Bucky. “Home sweet home for hopefully not long.”

Bucky didn’t seem to notice the lighthouse at all though. His knuckles were white as gripped his jacket tightly and stared out at the ocean.

_Shit._

She dragged Bucky, who had just spent 70 years as an unintentional ocean buoy, to the shore. Bucky, who had literally lost everything and everyone he’d ever known or loved when he fell into the ocean trying to stop a madman from blowing up the Eastern Seaboard. Bucky, who had only been awake for what - a few weeks? 

Bucky, who might just be the sweetest person on the planet and who was well on his way to completely running away with her heart.

She put that look on Bucky’s face. She was an asshole. A definite puppy kicker.

“Bucky…”

“You made it!” Jane called, rushing up to them. “I was getting worried.”

Darcy opened her mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came out.

Bucky stepped in, saving her once again. “We took the scenic route. I couldn’t risk someone following. Darcy’s mentioned how much the anonymity of this place means to you.”

Jane gave him an appraising look.

“And I won’t risk Darcy’s safety. For anything,” Bucky continued.

Jane snuck a look at Darcy, then nodded. “You’ll do.” She grabbed Darcy’s hand. “Come on, I need to show you how to calibrate the sensors. If you’re going to be out here, you may as well test out my new theory.”

* * *

“I am not a fan of leaving them in the lurch like this,” Darcy said, picking at the wires she was supposed to be sorting. Jane’s organization skills had always left something to be desired and Darcy’s time away from the lab had not done anything to improve matters.

“It’s a leave of absence, Darce. You’re not quitting,” Jane argued.

Darcy scowled. “Yeah, but it sounds so _fake_. Who is going to believe that I need a leave of absence for national security reasons? Couldn’t we make up a sick relative or something? Steve even said he only needs a few days. I could have the flu! This feels like overkill.”

“What? Don’t want to hang out with Team Science anymore?” Jane teased.

Darcy half-heartedly glared at her. “You know that’s not true.”

“I do.” Jane’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “I also know that you’re not all that upset about having to spend nearly all your time with a certain ‘If I had to pick a historical figure’ fantasy -”

“Shhhhhh!!” Darcy shushed, glancing around quickly. “These walls have ears, you know.” She narrowed her eyes at Jane. “And that list was revealed in the strictest of confidence, in the sanctity of a Mezcal Monday. You don’t see me blabbing to all and sundry about your-”

“Oh stop,” Jane interrupted, flushing. Then her grin turned impish. “Besides, he didn’t look all that unhappy about it either.”

“You stop,” Darcy muttered, but there wasn’t any heat in it.

The truth was - Darcy was _thrilled_ at this turn of events. She probably could have done without having to tase her way out of DC, but if it got her to the point where she was spending her days in close proximity to one super hot war hero? She’d take it. The fact that he was also sweet and considerate? Well, that was also doing plenty of flippy things to her heart that she wasn’t entirely sure she should allow - but she wasn’t going to do much to stop either.

And as she kept reminding everyone - weirder things had happened. It was second nature at this point to take it in stride. The proximity to one Bucky Barnes was just a very, very sweet bonus.

“Thanks for letting us crash here,” Darcy said quietly as she stuffed more wiring into a box. “I know it blows your cover a bit, having to reveal its existence to Steve.”

Jane’s eyes flashed in annoyance. “First of all, your safety comes first, okay? I’d give up a hundred more secrets if it would help you.”

Darcy grinned. “Yeah, maybe tone that down a bit - a bad guy hears you talking like that and we’re all in trouble.”

Jane ignored this. “Second - we told _Steve Rogers_ , not all of Facebook.” Jane paused. “You...you didn’t post this on Facebook did you?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “When was the last time I even logged in to Facebook?”

“My point is that I’m pretty sure of anyone we would have had to tell about the lighthouse, Steve is the least likely to ever reveal it.” Jane gave Darcy a quick, critical look. “Are you going to be okay out here? I can stay.”

Darcy shook her head. “We’ll be fine. Between keeping an eye on your equipment and catching Bucky up on the last 70-some years, we’ll have plenty to keep us occupied.”

“Oh you’ll be occupied, all right,” Jane teased, then sobered. “If you’re sure.”

Darcy’s heart swelled with affection for her friend. “I’m sure. Thanks, Jane.”

Jane grinned. “Okay. So, one more time. Walk me through how to calibrate the sensor array.”

Darcy groaned. “Bang it with a hammer.”

“Darcy,” Jane warned.

She grinned in response. “Yeah, yeah, boss lady. I won’t break your precious equipment,” she said, and got to work showing Jane that she _had_ been paying attention when Jane taught her what to do.

* * *

Bucky sighed as he made his way down the steps and into the living room. He could hear Darcy and Jane moving around outside, on the far side of the lighthouse. As much as the science appealed to him, the sea was currently calling him home. 

With one last peek over his shoulder to make sure the two women were far out of sight, Bucky raced down onto the beach. He quickly stripped out of his clothes and piled them on a rock, then slipped his sealskin over his shoulders and dove into the waves as he let his magic take hold and change him.

_Finally._

He raced through the water, streaking through the waves faster than he could ever possible swim in his human form. Tiny fish darted out of the way as he swam. He jumped into a particularly large wave, playing and splashing and generally _happier_ than he’d been in longer than he cared to admit.

Even after Steve had brought his skin to him in Europe, it wasn’t like he’d had much opportunity to use it. There was the occasional mission with Namor where it had come in handy, but given that he didn’t advertise his true nature - even to the Howlies or Invaders - those opportunities were thin on the ground. Or in the sea, as it were.

70 years floating frozen in his human form didn’t do him any favors either.

He dove and swam and fished and played until he could feel the creeping ache of exhaustion pulling at his mind. It was a good exhaustion, working the muscles that hadn’t been stretched in far too long, but it was exhaustion all the same. His left side ached - he was going to have to do something about the arm. Even in this form he was struggling a bit and he wasn’t able to maneuver quite as swiftly he once did. With a mental sigh, he swam back to the surface and got his bearings. Only a little ways off shore, the lighthouse was still clearly visible and the sun high in the sky. He probably hadn’t been gone all that long - it was likely no one had missed him yet. 

He turned onto his back and floated for another few minutes, enjoying the feel of the water sliding against his skin and the smell of the salt in the air, letting the ocean - his _home_ \- start to heal his tired soul. He lay back and thought of nothing at all.

Or tried to, anyway.

Darcy Lewis had a way of creeping into his thoughts, no matter what form he took, apparently. He barely knew her. But he knew he wanted to know her.

He’d always been charming - that had never been an issue. He’d never been without company anytime he’d wanted it. 

But how much of that was _him_ and how much of it was his nature? How much was the pull of the unsatisfied? It was all bullshit, as far as he knew. He couldn’t provide freedom any more than anyone else could. Leave it to humans to dream up a story like that.

Bucky sighed, forgetting himself, and accidentally let out a long snort that echoed through the air.

“Janey, look! We’ve got seals!” 

Bucky choked and dove beneath the surface of the water. He hadn’t intended for anyone to see him like this. He stayed underwater as long as he could, swimming around to the other side of the shore where he’d stashed his clothes.

He peeked out of the water. Darcy and Jane were on the beach, but staring off in the other direction, where they’d initially spotted him. He couldn’t hear them from where he was treading water, but he watched until they seemingly lost interest in the disappearing seal and were wrapped up in their own conversation again. He changed to his human form, carefully waiting until both women were turned away before making a break for the shore and the rock where his clothes were hidden.

When he was dressed again, he shook as much water from his hair as he could and made his way back to the lighthouse.

“Hey.”

Bucky jumped at the voice. Darcy was standing on the deck, leaning against the rail, a strange look on her face.

Shit. What had she seen?

“Hi,” he choked out.

“Steve’s on the phone for you.”

“Thanks.”

Darcy nodded, then turned to go back inside.

Bucky tried to fight down the panic that was rising. It was fine. She probably hadn’t seen a thing - she’d been all the way on the other side of the shore when he’d come out of the water, after all. It was a coincidence. His secret was still safe.

The sound of waves crashing against the shore roared in his ears and he felt the itch to run back into the water, to swim and to play and to just be. Leave the humans to their world and forget any of it ever happened. Forget Darcy.

He groaned. Living here, so close to the water, with someone who had once held his skin might be a little harder than he’d thought.


	12. Chapter 11

Bucky peeked inside the door, glancing around for Darcy or Jane, but the room was empty. He silently entered and picked up the phone receiver that was sitting on the counter. 

“Hello?”

_“Buck? How’s it going?”_

Bucky sighed. “Steve, we’ve been here for less than a day.”

_“These aren’t exactly ideal circumstances. Excuse me for caring.”_

“Oh you mean the future isn’t just one giant inconvenience that doesn’t even have the redeeming novelty of flying cars?”

_“What is with you and the flying cars?”_

“I was promised flying cars, Steve.”

_“I’m going to assume that since you’re capable of being a gigantic pain in the ass that you’re settling in okay.”_

Bucky chuckled. “Yeah. We’re fine.”

The line when quiet for a moment. When Steve spoke again, his voice was hesitant.

_“Buck, I have to...Look, before you...came back...your jacket was in the exhibit. I asked Darcy to take it down and she told me it would go into storage. But when I broke into their archives, I couldn’t find it. I swear to you though - I asked Howard to take it to Rebecca. There were explicit instructions for our things, should the worst happen. Howard promised me he would get it to her. I don’t know how it...”_ His voice trailed off. 

Bucky smiled a little. “I don’t blame you, Steve. Honestly, if Howard had given it to Rebecca, who knows where it would have ended up.”

_“Wouldn’t she...I mean...what happens to it, when...you die?”_

He sighed. “Hell if I know. That’s why I didn’t take it with me when I got my orders - I figured it was safest at home with Rebecca, if something happened to me.”

_“And I screwed that up.”_

“Steve,” Bucky said, a little exasperated, “it’s fine. You didn’t know and after Azzano, it was a comfort to have it. I have never, ever regretted Rebecca giving it to you and you taking it to Europe.” He sighed again. He was doing that a lot lately. “I’m just confused as hell. I thought maybe it would have been with family or something - did you count just how many grand-nibblings I have?”

_“Your family scattered to the wind after the war.”_

“Yeah well - wouldn’t you? We didn’t know just how much Zola knew, remember? We _told_ them to hide.”

_“I remember,”_ Steve said quietly.

“Anyway,” Bucky said quickly, needing to change the subject, “find anything on your side yet?”

_“No,”_ Steve growled in frustration, _“not a thing.”_

“Keep looking, I guess? I mean - as nice as this is, Darcy can’t stay here forever.”

_“Buck, you don’t understand. I didn’t find_ anything. _There’s too much nothing - it’s too clean. There’s something going on. Something...something big.”_

Bucky chewed on that thought for a moment. “Want me to head down to find the big guy?”

_“The big… OH! You mean Subby.”_

Bucky grinned. “Who else would I mean?”

_“Remind me to tell you a story about how I spent my first few weeks out of the ice.” Steve paused. “See if he’ll talk to you. I don’t know if this is something he’d be willing to get involved with, but it wouldn’t hurt.”_

“The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh?”

_“Buck, you have no idea.”_

* * *

Bucky woke the next morning just before dawn. He made his way out to the deck and stared out at the horizon, watching the sun come up over the water as he brought the mug of coffee to his lips and took a long sip. In the weeks since he’d woken up, since Namor had blasted him out of Atlantis and he’d cursed at the sky, damning Namor to a hundred years of dry skin and itchy shorts, he hadn’t had a spare moment just to savor the quiet and try to _process._

70 years. Everyone he’d known, long gone.

Well, not Steve, since he’d apparently decided to follow Bucky’s semi-suicidal impulse and crash the plane into a damn iceberg, freezing himself and ending up in the future in the process. Funny how fate worked, that they’d both make it to the future like this.

Despite his extended unintentional swim, the sea still sang to him, calling him home. His brief dip the previous afternoon had done almost nothing to satisfy the urge to play in the waves. He needed to go see Namor, sure, but he still needed something else. He had his skin back, and Steve would understand if Bucky needed to go. He jiggled his leg, restlessly. What the hell was _really_ keeping him here on land?

“Morning,” Darcy called groggily, nursing her own coffee and snuggling into his sealskin she had wrapped around her shoulders. His heart both sang and sank at the sight.

“Hey,” he replied, ripping his gaze away from the waves and turning to her. “Thank you for letting me stay last night.”

Her face scrunched up in sleepy confusion. “Was that not the plan?” She slurped her coffee. 

It should have annoyed him. It absolutely did not. He wasn’t sure what to do with that information, so he filed it away to deal with later.

“How are you feeling this morning?” she asked, taking another gulp of her coffee.

“Fine?” Bucky wasn’t sure what she was getting at with her question.

“Better than I’d be then, stuck near the ocean after drifting for so long.” She joined him at the railing and leaned onto it, cradling her mug in her hands as she looked at the shore.

“Ah.” Proximity to the ocean wasn’t exactly an issue in the way Darcy thought it might be. “Well...I’ve always liked the ocean,” he replied, lamely.

Darcy chuckled a little, deep in her throat, then took another long sip of her coffee. 

“How are _you_ feeling? You’re the one who’s life was just upended.” Bucky paused. Shit - Darcy’s attack, her having to run from her life, for her life at all - was entirely his fault. “I’m sorry for all this, by the way. If you want, I can...I know Steve said he’d feel better if there was someone with you, but if I’m making you uncomfortable or anything - I guess I can look for somewhere else to go?” He’s probably just head into the water, keep an eye on her from just offshore, but that was a detail he could keep to himself for now.

Darcy blinked at him. “I’m not kicking you out. Did it sound like I was kicking you out? Don’t trust me before the third cup of coffee.”

“Darcy-”

“Look, it’s no biggie. It’s actually like...the fourth time I’ve had to run for my life? I think? I’ve lost count.” She shrugged and his sealskin slipped off her shoulder a little. He would continue to sneak it into her room every night if she continued to wrap herself up in it like this. The rest of the world could go to hell for all her cared. “I can help you catch up a bit, in the meantime. If you want.”

“Catch up?”

She grinned at him, but was kind enough not to laugh outright. “You kinda missed a minute during your swim, bud.”

“Really? Hadn’t noticed,” he replied. “Although let me reiterate my eternal disappointment that no one has figured out a flying car by now.”

“Sure thing, Buck.”

Her use of the nickname brought a smile to his face. “How? Is there a library out here?”

She grinned. “There is, of a sort. Anyone show you the internet yet? It’s slow as anything here but that’s not our only option. I didn’t drop this one on you last night because it was already a lot.” He waited patiently as she took another sip of coffee. “Ugh that’s good. I need more, do you need a refill?”

“Sure.”

Darcy waved him inside. “My coffee better than the sludge they served back when? Say yes.”

He felt a smile pull at his lips. “Yes.”

“Good man.” She refilled both mugs and clinked hers against his. “Cheers.” 

He took a sip. It wasn’t a lie - her coffee was pretty good. 

“So. Back on topic. If you remember, you’re looking at the person who put together the James Barnes exhibit at the Smithsonian. Outside of Steve Rogers, and now. Well. _You._ I’m probably the world’s leading authority on James Barnes.”

Despite her sweet demeanor, he felt a little bit of ice creep through him. He remembered. He just...What, exactly, did she know? What had she made public? What had she _told the world_?

“I know that you were in the museum, but honestly, I couldn’t have included everything I found on you even if I wanted to. So,” Darcy continued, oblivious to his turmoil, “what that means is that I know what happened to the other Commandos. I know what happened to your family. If you want to know.”

Oh.

“Becks,” he whispered. 

“Your sister?” At his nod, she continued. “Rebecca Barnes-Proctor. Worked as a nurse at Greenpoint Hospital until it closed in 1982. Married Scott Proctor in 1953, had two kids, who now have a few kids of their own.” Darcy paused. “She...she passed away a few years ago. Old age.”

Bucky closed his eyes for a moment then looked back at Darcy. “What about Katie? Mary?”

Darcy spent the next half hour giving him an abbreviated history on his own family tree. Things he hadn’t had the time to look for when he’d gone to the museum. He’d been so focused on finding the sealskin Steve had found there, he hadn’t looked for anything else. He asked about the other Howling Commandos, where they’d ended up and was relieved to hear that it was only him and Steve who seemingly hadn’t survived the war. 

Still, everyone he’d loved - they’d lived their lives. Most were long gone, leaving behind a gaggle of kids and grandkids. He still had family, technically, even if he didn’t know them. Could he go to them? Selkies were generally a distrustful lot, by nature, but they were also very curious. Had their positions been reversed, he didn’t think he would be able to turn a member of his family away, no matter how distant the relation or impossible the story.

Maybe - _maybe_ \- one of them would know what to do. What it meant that Darcy had hidden his skin for so long and then returned it of her own free will. They would all certainly be selkiefolk, right? Darcy wouldn’t know to ask if any of his sisters married humans, but even if they had, the pups would still be selkie. Someone would know, wouldn’t they? It would be one more question answered, no matter how painful that answer might be.

He felt a tear slip down his cheek. 

Darcy squeezed his hand. “I can stop,” she offered. “We don’t have to do this at all if-”

He shook his head. “No no - it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s...it’s just a lot.” He tried to grin at her. “For just one cup of coffee, anyway.”

Darcy’s eyes bugged out. “Oh well _that_ I can fix.”

* * *

“Ugh, come on, you stupid piece of junk!” Darcy groaned as she struggled to pull the damaged bit of equipment out of the array on her roof. The last storm had left quite a bit of damage in its wake, leaving her scrambling to put everything to rights before Jane lost too much data on this new experiment she was running. Bucky was inside, on the phone with Steve again, sharing intel over the secure line and working out their next move. They’d invited her to stay, but she couldn’t stand to be inside for another minute. Thinking about Rumlow, how close he’d gotten and how easily he’d done it, gave her the creeps. Normally, she’d be itching to be in the know, insistent that she have all the information should she need to make a snap decision on her own. But in this particular situation, she trusted Bucky to fill her in on anything she truly needed to know.

And wasn’t that a kicker. After Thor fell out of the sky, her trust had become a hard-won thing. She trusted Jane implicitly. She trusted Thor and Erik and Ian. Phil Coulson and Clint Barton could be relied upon in a pinch, but they weren’t her first choice unless the world was ending.

Bucky however? Darcy had trusted him from the start. Even that first day in the museum, she trusted that his attempt at anonymity was for his own protection and not because he had any ill-intentions towards her. Add the pull she felt whenever he was in the vicinity and oh yeah, her heart was in trouble. Big, big trouble. 

Her hand slipped at the thought of his smile and she almost sliced her fingers open on the edge of the sensor array. 

_Focus Lewis. You’re out here for a reason. And that reason is not to pathetically pine for one Bucky Barnes._

She dug through her tool bag for a different sized screwdriver and cursed the stupid storm that had knocked everything into disarray to begin with. Honestly, it was a lucky thing she was even out here. Who knows when Jane would have noticed the data loss otherwise?

“Need a hand?” a voice said from the ground.

Darcy peered over the edge. “Bucky?” she asked, surprised. “You done with your phone call already?”

He nodded. “Thought maybe you could use some help up there.”

“And what use could I possibly have for you?” she asked, throwing him a teasing grin.

He shrugged. “I can move the heavy stuff,” he offered with a heart-stopping smile.

Darcy _absolutely_ did not notice. “Sold. Get that ass up here.”

And of course, Bucky had her sorted out in less than ten minutes. Stupid combination of height and muscles, even if he was favoring his right side a little. Darcy allowed herself one moment of internal grumbling, then one moment of internal appreciation, before turning to Bucky.

“I hate to say it, but we’re done,” Darcy said.

“Why do you hate to say it?”

“I’d been fighting with this for over an hour. And now, I have run out of things for you to do in ten minutes.”

“So?”

Darcy shrugged. “You...want more stories about your family or something?” she asked.

Bucky stared at her for a moment. “I mean...sure, I guess. I have a lot of catching up to do, but...Has it occurred to you that maybe I just like spending time with you?”

Darcy suppressed the urge to do a little happy dance. “You barely know me,” she deflected.

Bucky looked like he wanted to disagree. “Only one way to change that,” he replied.


	13. Chapter 12

“So,” he said, stirring the pan the way Darcy had showed him to saute the tofu as she quickly finished slicing the vegetables for their dinner. “Science.”

“Yep.” Darcy grinned at him, clearly understanding what he was asking but planning to make him work for it.

“What’s that about?”

“Gee, Buck, wanna vague that question up a little more? I’m not sure I can answer such a detailed inquiry.”

“You were working in a museum. Now you’re hanging out in a makeshift observatory.”

“Slash astrophysics lab.”

“Slash astrophysics lab. How does one get from one to the other?”

Darcy shrugged. “Got lucky. I didn’t want to take an actual science class in college, so I applied for an astrophysics internship, met my platonic soulmate in Jane, saved the world - _twice_ \- and then decided to take a break and go for a desk job for giggles. Cue getting handed a few boxes of your crap, and that brings us to now.”

Bucky nodded. “I have a lot of questions about that. Maybe we could go for the PhD level dissertation rather than the overview?” 

Darcy’s laugh filled the kitchen and it quickly topped the list of Bucky’s favorite sounds.

This should be harder. Even in the past - before the war, before he spent decades drifting - it was hard. He had never wanted for company, but he had never been sure that anyone wanted to spend time with him for him. There was always the question in the back of his mind, wondering if they were drawn to him because they were unsatisfied.

He’d always thought that would change after the war. For all the secrecy around the program, he was an Invader. He was a Howlie. Subby could be grouchy about it all he wanted, but as far as Bucky had been concerned, when the war was over he’d go home a hero. Life would be free drinks and a perpetually full dance card. Parades and just...things would be different.

Instead, he’d died and the world moved on. He was forgotten by anyone and everyone that might have mattered, might have meant something to him.

Everyone except Darcy.

She swept the veggies off the cutting board and into the pan, bumping him with her hip. “So...what do you want to know?”

* * *

“And then,” Darcy gasped, trying to control her giggles enough to finish her story, “he smashes the mug on the ground, yelling ‘I like this drink. ANOTHER!’”

“No!’ Bucky laughed.

“True story, I swear it.”

Bucky shook his head. “What is it with royalty?”

“Oohhh, should I take that comment as proof of my theory that you, Mr. Smiles-and-Charm Barnes were making time with the Queen of England during the war?”

Bucky choked on his tea and dribbled a little down his shirt. Smooth. “What?” he gasped.

Darcy grinned. “I mean, what other royalty could you be referring to?”

“I’m not sure I want to know how you came up with this theory.”

“Your dirty novel collection might have given me a few ideas.”

Bucky shifted in his seat, not wanting to dwell on exactly what ideas Darcy might have gotten. “War can be very lonely business, Darcy.”

“Uh huh,” she replied, not buying it at all. “If not Queen Elizabeth, then who?”

Bucky considered her for a moment. “I noticed that your little display at the museum-”

“Technically _your_ display, but go on.”

“-included plenty of information about the Howling Commandos.”

Darcy nodded. “They were an important part of the story.”

“You didn’t mention any other teams we might have been a part of.”

Her eyes lit up. “There were _others_?” Bucky nodded. “But - there was no - I mean, the Stark Archive didn’t -” Darcy’s face flushed and Bucky was in love. “WHAT THE HELL, BARNES.”

Bucky laughed. “I don’t know what might still be classified.”

“Buddy, at this point, my security clearance probably outranks yours.”

“Well it’s certainly more up to date,” Bucky conceded. A breeze blew across the deck, bringing the smell of the tide through the cool night air. He closed his eyes and breathed it in, reveling in it for a brief moment before opening his eyes and turning back to Darcy. 

She shivered slightly, then blushed when she caught him looking. 

“Here,” he said, grabbing his sealskin from the decking near his feet, leaning over, and wrapping it around her shoulders.

_What in the seven seas are you_ doing _, Barnes?_

The tiny, rational voice screaming at him in his head was immediately silenced by Darcy’s grateful smile. 

“Thanks,” she said quietly, tucking her face into the leather and taking a sniff. He smiled back - she wasn’t even trying to hide how much she liked being enveloped in his sealskin and it warmed a space in his chest. He slung his arm around her shoulders and she snuggled into him.

“They called us the Invaders,” he said. “Allied super heroes banding together to fight evil.” He threw her his most charming grin. If he’d ever sold war bonds like Steve had, it was the grin he would have used. Not that he’d practiced in the mirror or anything. He just wanted to be prepared. Just in case. “That was the line the brass sold, anyway.”

Darcy’s eyes lit up as a curious smile crossed her face. She tugged his leather a little closer around her. “It was you and Steve?”

He nodded. “Among others.”

“Tell me?” Darcy’s big blue eyes held a plea and Bucky was helpless to do anything but acquiesce. So he told her - he told her stories about Jim Hammond and Toro, Spitfire and Union Jack. He left out Namor, knowing that Subby would likely object, if he ever found out about it. Bucky didn’t know what the future held for him - it probably wasn’t in his best interest to piss off the Atlantean prince - or king now, as it were. 

He told her stories for hours, only occasionally playing up his own role or glossing over the truth. (No one really needed to know the _actual_ story about the time he’d attempted to toss Steve’s shield to him - and overshot it by a mile, sending the shield flying out of sight and embedding it in the sidewalk below where they were fighting. Really. If everyone could just forget that ever happened, that would be _great_.)

Soon enough Darcy’s eyelids were drooping and she’d stifled one too many yawns for him to ignore.

“Okay. Storytime is over - let’s get you to bed, huh?”

“You joining me?” Darcy asked sleepily as she climbed out of her chair.

Bucky grinned to himself as he stood up - apparently sleepy Darcy was an unfiltered Darcy. Well, more unfiltered than usual anyway. 

“I’ll be in shortly.”

Darcy hummed her acknowledgement. “This was nice, Bucky. Thanks.” She leaned in and pressed a sweet kiss to his cheek and holy seashells, he was in love. “And thanks for this - one of these days, I’ll remember to bring a blanket out here with me.” She pulled his sealskin from her shoulders and held it out to him. When he hesitated, she just smiled and gently dropped it onto his chair. He felt his heart sink as the leather fell from her fingertips.

“Good night,” she called over her shoulder as she walked inside.

“Night,” he breathed, staring after her. He picked up his sealskin and sat down heavily, burying his face in his hands.

He’d given her his sealskin. Again. And she had given it back. _Again._

What the hell does he do now?

Movement on the beach caught his eye and he stood up, gripping his sealskin in one hand, ready to bolt inside and get Darcy into a defensible position in a heartbeat. He squinted a little, trying to make out just what had drawn his attention and cursed his eyes for being inferior out of the water.

“So tense, James.”

Bucky released the breath he was holding and let his head fall back in relief. “Subby.”

Namor climbed the steps of the deck and stood next to Bucky, leaning forward on the railing and staring out at the ocean. “Hey Junior. What troubles you this evening?”

“Aw Subby, I didn’t know you cared.”

Namor silently gave Bucky a look. Bucky grinned at him.

“You spying on me out here?”

“That would imply I don’t have better things to do with my time,” Namor replied.

Bucky nodded. “So...you’re spying on me?” A low grumble emanated from deep in Namor’s chest. “70-odd years later and you’re still fun to rile up.”

“How is your arm?” Namor asked, changing the subject.

Bucky rolled his shoulder. “Hurts sometimes. It’s weaker than it was. If I had to hang onto another missile streaking towards New York, I don’t know if I could do it. Maybe it’ll get better with time.”

Namor made a noncommittal noise. “I see you have your sealskin back.” 

Bucky sighed and looked down at the leather in his hands before stepping forward to lean on the railing with Namor. “A human had it.” Namor looked at him sharply. “Not like that,” Bucky said before Namor could yell ‘Imperious Rex!’ and start threatening to rein destruction down on Darcy’s head. “Apparently, the instructions Steve left for what to do with our personal effects in the event of our untimely demise weren’t followed. This,” he lifted his skin and nodded at it, “ended up in a museum.”

Namor - well, Namor didn’t gape, exactly. But it was close. Bucky wished he had a camera.

“It was...on display?” Namor spat.

“No. It was in storage until Steve came out of the ice. When he heard they were going to display it, he asked them to take it down. It had been in the care of one of the curators ever since.”

“When did you steal it back?”

Bucky stared out at the water. “That’s the thing. I didn’t.”

“Explain.”

“She found me. Gave it back. _Keeps_ giving it back, actually.” Bucky looked to his friend. “Don’t suppose you know what that means?”

Bucky was pretty sure that Namor was doing everything possible to keep himself from rolling his eyes. “You know the stories of your people better than I. I have enough responsibilities looking after my own people.”

“So you’re not insulted you didn’t get an invite to my inadvertent selkie wedding?”

“James-”

“If that’s even what this is,” Bucky said, his voice despondent. The thought twisted something in his chest so hard he thought he might snap in half. “It feels like it. But...I don’t actually know.”

“I will never understand humans or the love you selkies have for them,” Namor sighed.

“Ohhhh, the surface isn’t so bad. There’s baseball. And beer.” _And Darcy._ Bucky shushed that part of his brain before it could take control and allow _that_ thought to escape. Namor would have opinions.

Namor gave him a look that suggested he knew exactly what Bucky was thinking and had opinions anyway. “I did not come here to watch you _pine_ for a human.”

“I’m not pining,” Bucky muttered petulantly.

“The sea is unsettled,” Namor continued, graciously ignoring Bucky’s comment.

Bucky accepted the change in subject with a nod. If Namor knew anything more about Bucky’s predicament, he wasn’t in a sharing mood. “Steve’s worried. There’s a human here that he works with who attacked Darcy. Was far too interested in me, considering that for all the rest of the world knows, I’m still dead.”

“I am not concerned by this human.”

“I am.”

“Because he shows undue interest in you? Or because he attacked your Darcy?”

“Both,” Bucky said simply. It was true. Brock Rumlow scared him.

Namor hummed as he considered Bucky, then he looked back to the sea. “If you’re truly concerned, I’ll grant you sanctuary in Atlantis.”

“I can’t leave Darcy,” Bucky replied automatically.

Namor nodded to Bucky’s sealskin. “Regardless of your ‘inadvertent selkie wedding,’ she no longer traps you here. You would do well to remember that. When the time comes.”

“She never intentionally trapped me in the first place.”

“Think on it,” Namor said, straightening and making for the stairs. “You know how to find us. When you’re ready.”


	14. Chapter 13

“Why would you do this?” Bucky asked, sniffling and wiping the tears from his eyes. 

“You said it was okay!” Darcy cried, wiping away her own tears.

“I _never_ said _this_ was okay!” he argued.

“You said you liked Disney movies!”

“I liked _Snow White_ , not this nonsense!”

“ _THE FOX AND THE HOUND_ IS A CLASSIC, BARNES!”

“YOUR CLASSICS ARE GARBAGE, LEWIS!”

They stared at each other for a moment, then broke into simultaneous laughter. Darcy rolled a little to the side, clutching her stomach.

“Stop - looking - at - me,” she gasped between laughs.

“Nope,” he replied and tugged her back closer to him, tucking her under his arm.

Darcy’s laugh softened as she snuggled into him with a soft sigh. She sniffled a little, then rested her head against his shoulder. She was on his injured side, but he tried not to think about that, instead choosing to focus on how soft her hair was or how nicely she fit against him.

“Another movie?”

“I feel like you shouldn’t be in charge of movie selection anymore.”

“Ugh, one time. Disney makes you cry _one time_ and I’m blamed for all eternity.”

“You picked the movie, therefore you get the blame.”

“I didn’t _write_ the movie,” Darcy argued.

“You knew what you were doing.”

“Well, yeah. Duh.” She looked up at him with a smile, the tiny gap in her teeth showing. The air suddenly felt thick and he had a little trouble swallowing.

Darcy blinked, looked away, and the moment passed.

“What time is it anyway? Shouldn’t Steve have called by now?” Darcy asked, leaning forward to check the time on her laptop.

“It’s what? Almost 9?”

“9:30,” Darcy replied quietly, looking over her shoulder at him.

Steve was only 30 minutes late checking in. That...wasn’t ideal. But it wasn’t a reason to worry. Not yet.

Darcy leaned back into his side. “I’m sure he just got a little hung up. He’s fine.” She shrugged with a small smile. “He’s Cap.”

He nuzzled her hair a little. Just a little. Darcy didn’t seem to mind the proximity and with the anxiety in his gut, he allowed himself to take this one little thing.

“Don’t tell me he has you fooled on the invincible front, too.”

“No,” Darcy replied with a hint of a laugh. “But I do know he’s a little less breakable than most.”

“Yeah.” He nuzzled her hair again and he felt Darcy lean in a little more. Maybe this wasn’t so unwelcome to her after all. Maybe, when this was all over, he could take her to dinner. Maybe they could give whatever this was a try. Maybe this wasn’t something he had to take, to steal tiny moments of. Maybe this would be something he was _allowed_. Encouraged even. Maybe his life after the war would be less parades and free drinks and more quiet nights on a sofa wrapped up in a blanket while Darcy told him about her day.

Maybe he was okay with that.

“Tell me a story,” Darcy said, her lips brushing his shoulder.

He smiled into her hair. “I think you’ve heard all my Invaders stories by now. And my Howlies ones.”

“Tell me a Bucky story,” she murmured.

Bucky felt his heart leap into his throat. Five little words and he was absolutely done for. As if he hadn’t been half in love with her already.

“I…” he coughed a little to cover his voice cracking. “I ever tell you about my last night in the States before shipping out?”

Darcy smiled. “That’s a _Steve and Bucky_ story,” she corrected.

He shrugged. “It’s a good one though. Explains my love for flying cars.”

Darcy’s shoulders shook with silent laughter as she shook her head. “Tell me why you like the ocean so much.”

Bucky stilled. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, just feels like there’s a story there.”

“Um…”

“Hey, it’s okay - you don’t have to -”

“No, no. It’s fine. I, um…” He huffed out a breath and gave her a smile. “It’s...I grew up in the city, you know? It’s loud and it’s crowded, and everyone is in everyone else’s business. Couldn’t sneeze without three of the neighbors knowing about it, and every single one of them would have an opinion the next day. But you get out to the shore at the right time? It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. It’s violent and terrible sometimes, but you pick the right moment and it’s just...It sings. It calls to you. Tells you exactly what you need to hear.”

“What does it say?”

He pulled his most devilish, charming grin. “That’s between you and the sea.”

A smile slowly grew across her face. “I like that,” she murmured. “How old were you? The first time you saw the ocean?”

He shrugged. “Weeks? Maybe days, I’m not sure.”

“You were born to it then. Part mermaid.”

And just like that, reality crashed in. All the secrets he was keeping that were keeping him from her. “Something like that,” he muttered.

* * *

Darcy dropped a few marshmallows into both mugs of hot chocolate as she tried to distract both herself and Bucky from the fact that Steve hadn’t called in yet. He was over an hour late on his check in by now and she was wondering when exactly was the time that they should start to worry. Not panic, never panic. Steve was Cap and Darcy was good in a crisis. If Bucky needed to fall apart he could. She’d be totally cool.

Was it time to panic yet? Shit, how did Jane or Pepper do this? She barely even knew Steve.

She looked to Bucky, who was watching her with an indecipherable look on his face. “We’re all set,” she said, forcing calm nonchalance into her voice. “Grab a blanket and meet me outside?”

He nodded and she made her way to the door, carefully nudging it open with her elbow as she tried not to spill any of their precious hot chocolate. She left it open for him, trusting the sea breeze to be enough to keep any bugs away in the short time that the door would be open. She settled onto the porch swing they had on the deck with a sigh and set the steaming mugs on the table in front of her while she waited for Bucky.

Bucky. Who not all that long ago was nothing more than a fantasy, someone to sigh over in a history book while lamenting her own laughable love life. Bucky, who was quickly becoming a dear friend and taking up more and more space in her thoughts. And her heart.

She supposed their proximity was to blame - they’d been living in each other’s pockets for over a week now, much longer than Steve had originally anticipated it would take to learn just what the hell Rumlow was up to. Logic dictated that no matter how attached she was feeling right now, the notion would pass as soon as they were separated and back to real life again.

Not that Bucky had a life to get back to in this century. And didn’t that thought hurt. Darcy had to wonder if Bucky was feeling what she was feeling - and she had a sneaking suspicion that he did - that it was simply a matter of circumstance. He’d been thrown into the future, separated from almost everyone and everything he’d ever known and then quickly forced into a situation where he was spending almost every waking moment with one person. If he had feelings for her at all, where they real? Or were they just an inevitable result of their proximity and due to evaporate as soon as they weren’t spending all of their time together anymore?

Darcy shook off the thought. She couldn’t control his feelings, only her own. And she knew, deep down in her soul, that her ever-growing affection for Bucky wasn’t a matter of immediacy or circumstance. It wasn’t going to evaporate as soon as the world righted itself again. 

That only left the question of what exactly she was going to do about it.

A warm weight settled around her shoulders, interrupting her thoughts. 

“Here you go,” Bucky said, smoothing that damn jacket over her shoulders before sitting down next to her on the swing and gently rocking them back and forth. “Now you’re properly equipped to listen to the ocean with me.”

Darcy smiled as she snuggled into the jacket and took a deep breath, reveling in it’s scent - one that she was coming to associate with _home_ and _warmth_ and _love_ more every day. Especially since he kept handing the thing over to her, looking for all the world like he was proposing marriage.

_Don’t go there, Lewis._

Was this a 40s thing? It had to be a 40s thing.

“You know,” Darcy teased as Bucky took the first sip of his hot chocolate, “a girl might get the impression that you _like_ seeing her with this thing, the way you keep handing it over. If you’re not careful, I might just steal it. Claim it as my own and hide it from you forever.”

Bucky paused, then set his mug back on the table and turned to give her indecipherable look. He was quiet for a long time. He was silent long enough that Darcy started to wonder if she should apologize, take it back somehow, clarify that she was kidding. He carried the jacket like a damn security blanket after all, and if he thought that she was actually going to steal it - 

“I’m starting to think that might not be such a bad thing,” Bucky murmured, finally.

_Oh._

“Don’t tempt me,” she replied.

“You started it.”

Darcy bit her lip. The way he was looking at her...yeah, she wasn’t alone in her feelings. She took a chance.

“So finish it.”

The words had barely escaped her when Bucky surged forward and captured her lips. Darcy let out a soft, surprised noise, then quickly returned the kiss with enthusiasm. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him flush against her as she kissed him back greedily. The sound of the ocean faded away, replaced by a buzzing in her ears that she distantly recognized as her own heartbeat, thumping wildly as Bucky gave her the kiss of her _life_. Seriously though - boys from the 40s. Who knew.

She could lose herself like this. She could lose herself like this _easily_ and she’d be happy to do it.

Suddenly, he broke the kiss, but didn’t move away. “I’m sorry,” he murmured against her lips.

Uh. What? “What for?” Darcy’s voice was a little breathless as she tried to regain control over her senses and force a little oxygen to her brain. 

Bucky hesitated and tried to pull away, but Darcy held him firmly in place. “I...I didn’t ask permission.”

“Permission?” Her brain would come back online soon. Really.

“To kiss you,” he clarified. Finally, Darcy registered the look on his face. She watched a faint blush cross his cheeks as his eyes grew sad.

_Fix it, fix it, fix it!_

Darcy nudged Bucky’s nose with hers as she laughed softly, causing him to quietly gasp. 

“I practically dared you, Bucky. Consider this blanket permission. You can kiss me anytime you damn well feel like it.”

Bucky blinked at her and she smiled, trying to reassure him with her eyes. His hesitation was frankly adorable, but right now she needed him to know that this was okay - she wasn’t upset. This was okay, this was allowed, and really freaking encouraged because holy cow did she want to kiss him again. 

Bucky finally seemed to get the message. He leaned in and captured her in a kiss once more, gently nibbling on her lower lip and making her giggle.

“This is really okay?” he murmured.

“Blanket permission. Promise.”

“Careful with that. I might take you up on it.”

Darcy leaned back a little so she could see Bucky’s face clearly. He still looked unsure, he’s usual confident demeanor slipping in the face of potentially losing her approval. She had to do something, say something to reassure him that they were on the same page, that she was romantically interested and completely onboard with further face smooshing.

_No pressure, Lewis._

_“BORN IN THE U.S.A! I WAS BORN IN THE U.S.A!”_

Darcy jumped as the ringtone she’d set for Steve blared through the living room, echoing off the walls and out the window to where they were sitting. Bucky groaned softly, almost growling.

“That would be Steve,” she whispered.

“Remind me to kill him later,” Bucky muttered as he pulled himself off the swing to run inside and grab the phone.

“Awwww, that’s overdoing it a bit,” she teased.

Bucky grumbled to himself as he picked up the phone, biting his lip and furrowing his brow as he fumbled to answer it. He managed to get the touchscreen to respond and held the phone to his ear. His eyes caught hers as he listened to the voice on the other end of the call. He held out his hand and she took it, intertwining their fingers as he rubbed a soft line along the back of her hand. 

Holding the man’s hand should not make her this damn giddy. It should _not_. She was a grown woman for crying out loud. He squeezed her hand as he continued listening to the voice on the other end of the phone and her heart felt like fireworks on the 4th of July.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Thanks.” He held the phone out to her and she pointed to the button he needed to tap to end the call.

“So? What’d he say?”

Bucky smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “All set. Looks like you can go home.”


	15. Chapter 14

“Guess I should go get my stuff together,” Darcy said, clutching slightly at Bucky’s side.

“Yeah. Steve said they’ll be here to take us back in the morning.”

Darcy nodded, then leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll throw my stuff into my bag and then we’ll finish our hot chocolate, yeah? Go listen to more of that ocean you love so much?”

He nodded at her but didn’t release her. He didn’t _want_ to release her, even if he knew that she was coming back. She wasn’t even going that far - she was going upstairs for a few minutes and then coming back. This urge to keep her so close was ridiculous.

She smiled at him like she knew what he was thinking. “Blanket permission, remember?”

Bucky grinned, then leaned in to capture her lips in another searing kiss. He felt her knees go a little weak and he wrapped his right arm around her, supporting her with the stronger arm as he caught his left hand in her hair.

“It’s going to be hard, being away from you. Now that I have this blanket permission, you’re going home.”

She grinned and nipped at his chin. “We’ll figure it out. The future is pretty cool that way.”

He stole one more kiss before letting her go. As she hurried up the steps to the bedroom upstairs, he looked around the living room with a sigh. His eyes landed on a book that had been left on the side table. 

_Legends of the Sea._

The smile melted off his face and his hand shook a little as he reached out for the book and picked it up. It was probably just fiction, right? Something Jane or someone had left in the lighthouse as a fun, lighthearted read to go with the theme of living with the ocean as your backyard. He could just picture it - Darcy flipping through while on the deck swing, giggling to herself.

“The Kraken!” she would laugh.

Which honestly wasn’t fair. Every Kraken he’d ever met was an absolute sweetheart. They couldn’t help that their size was intimidating to the narrow minded humans. So they ate a boat now and then. Who didn’t have a rebellious phase?

“It’s just fiction,” he reminded himself. His heart rate sped up to a thousand as he flipped open the cover and found a note.

_My dear Darcy,_

_Something tells me that this might interest you, given recent events. Maybe it will even be useful one day soon. Promise me you’ll tell me your thoughts? We’ll discuss over sushi, maybe._

_With love,_   
_Ian_

One. Who the fuck was Ian? Two. Why the fuck was he addressing his note “My dear Darcy” and signing it “With love”? Three. Darcy liked sushi? He could catch fresher sushi than this chump could ever hope to see in any restaurant he could take Darcy to. 

Bucky took a deep breath and tried to focus, because Darcy would be back in a minute and these thoughts weren’t helping. He shoved tiny jealous Bucky that lived in his brain back in his box and sternly reminded him that Darcy had an entire life outside of him, had lived said life long before they ever met, and would continue to do so for a long time to come. 

There was a date next to the signature. Bucky did the math. The note had been written - and presumably given to Darcy - after she’d started working at the Smithsonian, but before he’d found Steve here in the future. When had she started reading these myths? Had she read them at all? Or had things been too hectic?

He flipped to the index and found the chapter on selkies. The page was dog-earred, but this book had been loaned - that could have been done by anyone. Darcy was actually kind of adamant about not abusing her books that way, so it was unlikely she’d done it. But had this Ian person flagged it for her maybe? Why?

Skimming the first chapter on selkies, Bucky’s heart plummeted. The author of this book knew what they were talking about. Hell, _Bucky_ could probably learn from this book. (Bucky probably _should_ learn from this book, but that wasn’t the point.) He raced through the pages, searching for answers to his own questions, but there wasn’t a reference to a selkie marriage anywhere. 

So that meant…that meant…

That meant that Darcy had known all along his “jacket” wasn’t a jacket at all. She’d known what it was and what it meant. She’d known all of Bucky’s secrets long before they’d ever met.

Darcy had known, all this time, that Bucky was a selkie.

She had known what the “jacket” was and hadn’t wanted to trap him - that was why she kept returning it. She knew what it meant and didn’t want to keep him.

The thought hurt far more than it probably should.

He closed the book with a snap and set it back on the table and sank onto the couch, dropping his head into his hands.

It was so like Darcy. She wouldn’t want him trapt or bound. She was far too kind for that. Why hadn’t she just sent him away then? Why go through all of this? And these last few days? Few minutes even? Why give him permission to kiss her if she didn’t want him to?

Maybe that was why he’d been so confused all this time. Maybe he can’t tell if they’re actually married or not because even if _he_ wanted to belong to her, she didn’t want him in return. Intent had power, after all - more power than one would think. If Darcy didn’t want to be a selkie bride, then she wouldn’t be one, simple as that. It left him in a bit of a mess, sure, but he didn’t blame her for that. Just as she didn’t want to trap him, the last thing in all the seven seas he wanted was to trap her. Keep her, maybe, but only if she wanted to be kept.

Namor had been right - humans were strange, cruel creatures. Bucky would be better off donning his skin and taking his refuge in Atlantis. At least there, Bucky could put distance between himself and the source of his pain. Nothing in Atlantis would remind him of what he’d lost here in the surface world. His family, his friends. 

His wife.

A stabbing pain in his chest bloomed as he settled into the realization and his breath hitched in a quiet sob.

There was a crash and a thump upstairs before he heard Darcy race down the steps, thundering gracelessly through the lighthouse.

“Bucky?” she called, her voice a little desperate. “Bucky, I think something is-” She stopped when she got to the bottom of the stairs and finally caught sight of him. She stared at him, taking in his broken and disheveled appearance, so different from a few minutes ago. “Wrong,” she breathed. “What happened? Did you - did you hear from Steve again? Is everything okay? Jane? How’s Jane?”

He shook his head.

She approached cautiously. “You’re kinda scaring me here, Buck.”

“No, I - it’s fine, everything’s fine. It’s me, I’m…” his voice trailed off as his eyes caught on his sealskin wrapped around Darcy, as always. She had her arms through it for once, wearing it like a coat.

She followed his gaze, glancing down at herself. “Oh! Do you want - here.” She quickly slipped out of it, shrugging it off like it was nothing and holding it out to him. She gave him a hesitant smile.

“Darcy?” he asked tentatively.

“Yeah?” she asked, her smile growing a little, encouraging him.

The smile was the thing. 

She smiled at him like she meant it. Like he meant something to her. Like she might carry a bit of affection for him in her heart.

But if any of that was true, why did she give him his skin back every single day?

Her smile faltered as his silence stretched on. “What is it?” she asked quietly, setting his sealskin down on the couch next to him and reaching for him, giving his arm a gentle, encouraging squeeze. Her fingers trailed down his arm to his hand, where she laced her fingers with his own. “What’s wrong?”

“Why won’t you keep me?” he asked quietly, his voice barely a whisper as he struggled to keep the tears out of his voice.

Darcy blinked. “Keep you?” she asked, her confusion apparent in the wrinkle of her nose. “You mean like...define things? You and me?”

“If that’s what you want to call it,” he hedged.

“I want to make sure we’re having the same conversation, Buck,” she said gently. “So could you humor me and clarify exactly what you mean?”

“I…” his voice failed him. 

Darcy wet her lips, the crease between her eyes deepening as her concern and confusion grew. “I care about you, Buck. Quite a bit, actually. Maybe more than I should, given how long we’ve known each other. But…”

He pulled his skin into his lap. “But you don’t want to keep me,” he whispered.

“I do though,” she said quickly. “I do want to keep you...if you and I are talking about the same thing here.”

“Then why…” his voice trailed off again and he held his sealskin out to her helplessly.

She looked down at it, her confusion peaking and turning to frustration. “I don’t understand. Is this like a 40s thing? Like...oh! Like pinning?” She looked away. “Or was that a 60s thing?” she muttered to herself. 

He dropped her hand and stood, reaching for her, cupping her cheek and gently nudging her to look back at him. Apparently, he was just going to have to come right out and say it.

“You found my sealskin,” he said, vehemently. “You hid it, kept it safe. Kept _me_ safe. And then you gave it back, setting me free. But I keep offering it to you freely and you keep giving it back and it feels like the world is ending every damn time.” He bit back a sob. “You keep turning me away and all I want in the world is for you to keep _it_ and to _keep me_ and I don’t know why you won’t.”

Darcy’s expression was completely blank. “You lost me.” His breath hitched and she hurried to continue. “Bucky, I have _not a single clue_ what you are talking about.”

“You read the book! You know the stories, you know what I am! You say you want to keep me and yet you keep giving my skin back!”

“What book?” Darcy asked, her voice rising with her frustration.

Bucky grabbed _Legends of the Sea_ up off the table. He held it out to her.

“The sea myths?” Darcy’s eyes flicked from side to side as she thought about it. “Sealskin,” she muttered. “You’re a...selkie? Selkies are real?”

“What? Yes!” he cried.

“Holy shit, Bucky, you’re a selkie?”

“How is this news? You’ve known all along!”

“Bucky, I had _no idea_.”

He blinked. “Wait, you didn’t?”

“No!” Darcy’s voice was slightly hysterical now. “I had no idea, not one single clue. Given my life experience, and that Ian is a sneaky little bastard who sometimes knows too much, maybe I should have considered it, but I didn’t. Not once.”

“But…”

She reached hesitantly toward his sealskin and gently ran her fingers over the leather. “I thought this was just a really well made jacket. That it was something you’d loved back when and had become something of a security blanket now. That’s why I kept giving it back - it’s _yours_. I had no idea that you...what it meant...oh no. Oh no no no no.” Darcy’s hand flew over her mouth. “You thought I...and then was trying to send you away?”

“Yes,” he whimpered.

Darcy flung her arms around him and he instinctively responded, lifting her slightly off her feet. “Never,” she whispered fiercely in his ear. “You hear me? Never. Never ever.”

He clung to her, relief flooding him. She didn’t return his skin because she didn’t want him. She returned it because she’d never known what it _meant_.

The relief was short lived as a new thought occurred to him. “Darcy...there’s...I..." He set her back on her feet and pulled away slightly. “There’s something we probably need to consider. Something that might change...everything.”

She ran a gentle hand over his hair. “What’s that?”

“Male selkies, we...well, we call to the unsatisfied. It’s in our nature. I don’t know everything that book might have said, but -”

“Bucky, are you somehow thinking that the only reason I want to be with you is because I’m unsatisfied?”

He nodded.

“No. No, Bucky. No.” Darcy pulled him close again. “I like my life. I’m happy with my life. I’m not unsatisfied. Unfocused, maybe. But never unsatisfied.”

“Then why would you-”

“Without you my life is good. I’m happy. But Bucky, I want to be with you because my life looks so much nicer with you in it. You make an already happy existence _better_. Even on the run. Maybe especially on the run, because Frigga knows I’ve done this before and it’s a hell of a lot better this time when I have you with me.”

His breath caught in his chest. “Really?”

“Really.” Darcy’s eyes shone with affection as she smiled at him and Bucky was so in love.

“That’s good. That’s really good. I’m really, really glad to hear you say that.”

Darcy laughed. “Okay?”

“Because we’re kind of married.”


	16. Chapter 15

Darcy blinked and tilted her head. “I’m sorry, we’re what now?”

“We’re kind of...married,” Bucky repeated, sheepishly. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and Darcy melted at the adorable look on his face. “I probably could have phrased this better.”

“You think?” she snapped, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Married,” she said, testing the idea out with a flat voice. “Huh.”

“It’s tradition, I think,” Bucky said, hurriedly. “My folks, they passed before they could teach any of us this stuff, so I’m kind of flying blind here. I didn’t bother, with the war and all, and always figured there would be time after.”

“And you didn’t get that time,” Darcy finished, her heart breaking for him. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling away from her.

Uh no. Darcy wasn’t having that. She grabbed him and pulled him close again, trying to meet his eyes, get a sense of his thoughts. He kept his gaze down and away, refusing to meet hers.

Darcy supposed she could appreciate him giving her a little space to process what had just happened. Bucky was a mythical sea creature that she had probably accidentally married. It was a lot for anyone, let alone two people who are on the run - while one of them attempts to catch up on the last 70 years that they’d missed while frozen in the ocean.

(Seriously. What was her life.)

“Okay,” Darcy said, nodding a little to herself. “Okay. That...that’s a thing. We’ll figure it out.” She smiled up at him. “It’ll be fine.”

Bucky stilled. “Darcy...I’m a selkie.”

“Yep.”

“I’m not human.”

“Got that.”

“You’re…” he shook his head. “This isn’t the reaction I was expecting. Why does no one ever react the way I expect?”

Darcy felt a wry grin pull at her lips. “You do this selkie marriage thing a lot, then?”

“What? No! It’s just, Steve, he-”

Darcy burst out laughing. “Am I Captain America’s sister wife?”

“What?”

“Because I’ll tell you now, I am not great at sharing.”

“I’m not married to Steve or anyone else for that matter,” Bucky bit out, clearly exasperated. 

Darcy cut the teasing and shrugged. “Look. I’m not saying that this isn’t all...huge and a little earth-shattering. But I’ve told you what’s been going on with me these last few years. I’ve learned that the universe is so much bigger than I ever thought. Surprises are few and far between these days.”

“We got married without either of us really knowing,” Bucky insisted.

“And I reserve the right to freak out later,” Darcy reassured him. “I’m not saying that this isn’t a big deal - it _is_ and if you and me are going to work, we’re going to have to put down some ground rules about keeping secrets. But at least you’re earthbound! I could have gotten myself involved with someone from Asgard or Vanaheim or anywhere else in the universe.” She paused. “You _are_ earthbound right?”

“I’m earthbound,” he replied, looking a little like he’d been walloped over the head.

“It’s really not all that different than if we’d gotten drunk in Vegas and had Elivs marry us.”

Bucky looked at her curiously. “Elvis?”

“Not important.” She pulled him close and laid her head on his shoulder, lowering her voice so as to not hurt his hearing. “We’re new. We’re so new, and this is a lot. It’s way too much for how new this is. But...I’m willing to try to work it out. We can figure this out, Bucky.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t want to force you into anything. We didn’t know. If you want me to go, I’ll go. No questions, no arguments.”

“No,” Darcy replied, tightening her hold on him. “Unless...unless it’s something _you_ don’t want?”

“What? No! I’m here, I’m in,” Bucky insisted. “I’ve just...I didn’t think you wanted me.”

“Maybe this isn’t the way I would have planned it, but…” She trailed off and gathered her thoughts. If she could have planned it? If this was something they could have chosen a few years down the line? Hell - _months_ down the line?

“This doesn’t change anything,” she finished with a smile. “You still have blanket permission to kiss me anytime you please.”

Bucky didn’t say anything, just gaped at her, hope and affection - love, even? - in his eyes. She tossed the word around, trying the idea out in her head.

_Husband._

Her smile grew. Yeah. She could work with that.

* * *

Darcy snuggled into Bucky’s side as she turned the page on the book.

“Okay, what about this one? Says here that in one uncommon tale, a human husband was swept out to sea. The selkie wife put on her sealskin to save him, but in doing so she was never able to return to shore.”

“False. I have already taken a swim and come back.”

Darcy sat up. “Really? When?”

Bucky grinned at her. “The first day here. You spotted me, actually. Scared me half to death.”

Her jaw dropped. “That’s why I couldn’t find it again. You’re my seal?”

Bucky bristled slightly. “I am very much your _selkie_. There’s a difference.”

“Whiskers. Fins. Blubber,” Darcy teased. “You’re a seal.”

“I’m going to start taking this personally.”

Darcy chewed on that for a moment. “Does it actually bother you?”

Bucky shrugged, then gave her an easy grin. “Not from you.”

Darcy thought about that for a moment, then decided to let the subject drop and made a mental note not to tease Bucky in that way again. She returned her attention to _Legends of the Sea_. “How about this one? When a selkie recovers their lost skin, they have an irresistible urge immediately return to the sea.” She frowned at the book. “Well, that can’t be true.”

“No, it is.”

Darcy paused, then looked at Bucky. “But...you’re still here.”

“I’m still here.”

“But you lost - and I found it and…” Her knuckles were white as she gripped his shirt, as though this small thing would keep him in place, should the sea decide to steal him away.

He nodded. “You did. You kept me safe.” He leaned in and kissed her temple. “The urge to leave was there. And it was pretty damn strong. I thought about it, more than once. Leaving, running back to the sea, asking Namor to take me in. But ultimately, I wanted to stay more than I wanted to go.”

Her breath caught. 

“Yeah, Darcy,” he said, smiling at her. “I wanted to stay with you.”

Oh hell. If kept up with that she was going to fall faster than she already was. She pulled him in and kissed him, trying to show him with actions what she wasn’t quite ready to say in words. 

“I’ll stay forever, if I get rewarded like that,” Bucky murmured.

“Deal.” She kissed him again and they lost themselves in each other for a little while.

Finally, Darcy needed to come up for air. She moved slightly out of his reach, Bucky teasingly chasing her, and found her place in the book to ask him the veracity of another selkie myth.

_While the tales of Selkies always begin with a warm and peaceful "once upon a time", there can be no happy ending for the tales of Selkies - someone always gets their heart broken._

Darcy blinked.

_Nope, not going to think about that one._

She snapped the book closed and buried her face in his neck, trying desperately to not think about all the ways she could get her heart broken here. 

“Done already?” Bucky asked, as he held her close, stroking her hair and making her heart flutter. “Not that I’m complaining here, but I’m pretty sure that the section on selkies was longer.”

“I wonder why Ian gave me the book in the first place,” she said, avoiding the question.

Bucky coughed a little. “Who’s Ian?” he asked, his voice tight.

“Ian Boothby. He’s the intern I hired to help with the science while Jane was out of sorts in London.”

“Boothby, huh? I knew a Boothby once. Back during the war. He always seemed to know a little too much for my liking.”

Darcy eyed him. “Did he get this weird, unnerving look occasionally, like he was reading your innermost thoughts and could see right into your soul?”

Bucky’s eyes lit up. “Yes! Creeped me out. I always figured he was something else. He knew too much, saw too much, to not be...something else.”

“Huh.” Darcy flipped the book over in her hands. “Ianto Boothby. Wouldn’t that be something if Ian, Ianto, and your guy were all related? Or hell - if he was something else, maybe it’s the same guy.”

They stared at each other for a moment, then by silent agreement, moved on.

Darcy cleared her throat. “Who’s Namor?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

“You mentioned Namor, that you’d ask him to take you in.”

“Ahhh,” Bucky said, clearly stalling. Darcy was highly entertained at how the back of his neck flushed a slight pink when he was caught out. She’d have to remember that for the future. Bucky hesitated for another moment then shook his head.

“You ever heard of Atlantis?”

“Sure.”

“He’s king there.”

“Wait-”

“Prince when I knew him, really. We fought together in the war.”

“Bucky-”

“He was an Invader - still is, if you ask Steve. Then again, if you ask Steve, none of our teams ever really disbanded.”

“I have questions!”

“I don’t doubt it,” Bucky grinned, then sobered. “But it’s not my place to tell you his secrets.”

“While I love a good secret, I guess I can respect that,” Darcy teased and settled back into Bucky’s side and flipped through the book again.

“Here’s one for you - one you’re not going to find in that book.” Darcy looked up at him, the tone of his voice worrying her a little. He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but it was brittle and forced. 

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want, Buck.”

“I know. I want to though. I want you to know.” He took a deep breath. “So...you know how Steve got the serum and no one has ever been able to successfully recreate it?”

“Yeah. We had a whole section of the exhibit on it.”

“What you don’t know is that when Steve first got the serum and chased after the assassin that killed Erskine, he was dying. The serum was killing him.”

“What?”

“He was starting to lose consciousness, but somehow in his haze he found his way to my sister. She panicked, and wrapped him up in my sealskin. I’d left it with her when I shipped out - I was afraid of what might happen to it if something happened to me. So she gave it to Steve - and I think it saved him. I think it’s the only reason the serum worked.”

“And you think that’s why it’s never worked again?”

Bucky nodded. “Nobody knows about this Darcy. No one who’s still alive anyway.”

Darcy nodded her understanding. “But...how do you know that Steve wouldn’t have recovered anyway? Maybe he just needed to burn through whatever was going wrong.”

“Because I think it’s the same reason why I was the only survivor of Zola’s medical experiments.”

Silence hung heavy around them as that thought sank in. Darcy pulled Bucky a little closer, as though she could protect him from his own history. If she had anything to say about it - and if she really was his wife, she had plenty to say on the subject - Bucky would never be subjected to anything other than clear skies and blue waves for the rest of their days.

“That a common trait for selkies?” she asked.

He sighed and rested his head against her. “There’s so much that hadn’t been passed on before my parents died. I don’t know.”

She nuzzled him just a little, trying to pull him back from the dark mood he was starting to sink into. “I’ll just chalk it up to you being special, then.”

Bucky snorted. “You’re biased, wife.” He froze, then snuck a look at Darcy. Apparently, he hadn’t quite meant for that to slip out.

Darcy gave him a reassuring smile and knocked their knees together. “I’m always biased when it comes to you. Get used to it.”

Bucky let out a shaky breath and tightened his arms around her. He opened his mouth to say something else when Darcy’s phone buzzed.

She leaned over to the table and grabbed it, opening up the message app. “Huh. Pickup is delayed and we’re not supposed to go outside.”

“It say why?”

“Nope. But I’ll bet I can fix that.” She extracated herself from his arms with a kiss and quickly ran to the other room to get her laptop. She returned to his side and pulled up a news feed.

They skimmed the headlines with growing horror. Darcy clicked on one of the live feeds to pull up video of the mess in DC.

_“-the Avengers, having mobilized in New York and stormed SHIELD headquarters in Washington DC. Iron Man and Thor have taken to the sky and Captain America has been spotted on one of the three large helicarriers that recently launched from SHIELDs under-river hangars and is now fighting his way across the deck.”_ The anchor paused, pressing a finger to her earpiece as someone in the control room whispered to her. _“This just in, breaking news - SHIELD’s servers have been decrypted and posted online with the message that SHIELD has been infiltrated by HYDRA. We’ll have more on this story as it develops, stay tuned here-”_

Darcy clicked the mute button and set the laptop on the table in front of them when Bucky’s breathing changed at the mention of HYDRA.

“Hey, hey. Eyes on me,” she cooed at him.

“HYDRA,” he gasped. “They were - that was who we were fighting! That was who we died to stop!”

“I know,” Darcy said, feeling helpless. She ran a hand over his hair, trying to soothe him as best she could, but this wasn’t something she could fix.

“Darcy...HYDRA is who Zola was working for. When Zola had me, if he found out that I’m a selkie - that my magic is the only reason the serum worked…”

Darcy felt her heart stop in her chest at the implication. “Then HYDRA might still be looking for your sealskin now.”

“And if HYDRA was inside of SHIELD…”

“Then Brock Rumlow might be HYDRA...and he’s currently looking for me.”


	17. Chapter 16

“Brock Rumlow will never get within 100 miles of you ever again,” Bucky promised. “Not as long as I am breathing.”

“I know he won’t,” Darcy replied. “Because I won’t let him within 100 miles of _you_ either.”

“Darcy,” Bucky breathed, his breath hitching. “I-” A knock at the door interrupted them. He swallowed hard. 

“Stay here,” he said.

“No,” Darcy hissed. “Don’t.”

Bucky pulled out of her grasp and made his way to the door. He pressed himself against the wall so he could peek through the window while still obscured by the curtain. A tall, mean looking man was outside. Bucky cursed himself for not asking Steve for a photo of this Rumlow guy - but if he had to guess, he would bet his last dollar that their luck had run out and Rumlow had found them. HYDRA had found them.

He looked back to Darcy and motioned for her to come over, then held a finger to his lips to signal her to be quiet. She joined him and he slowly directed her to peer out of the window as well.

She nodded at Bucky. “Rumlow,” she mouthed at him.

_Shit._

“I know you’re in there, Lewis,” Rumlow growled outside. “I can feel you thinking.” He pounded on the door again. “Come on, open up. I just want to talk to you.” Rumlow smirked. “Just want to pick that brain of yours. Then we can have some fun.”

Darcy closed her eyes in disgust and Bucky pulled her to him, cradling her head against his chest. If he could block out the sound of Rumlow’s words, he would. He moved them quietly further inside and away from the door. He didn’t want to do this - he wanted to rewind the clock and relive the last happy hour over and over again.

“Go upstairs,” he breathed, “lock yourself in the bathroom, and hide in the tub.”

Darcy narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take care of this.”

“Bucky-”

“This is what I do, Darcy.” Bucky’s voice was even, his demeanor completely calm. “This is a side of me I never wanted you to see, but I don’t have a choice right now. I do the things other people can’t.”

She shook her head. “I’m not leaving you out here with him.”

“Where would we go, Darcy? He’ll wait. We can’t get outside and our friends are a little busy at the moment.”

“Don’t do this,” Darcy pled.

“Please Darcy. Go.”

Tears filled her eyes. “I just found you,” she whispered and his heart broke.

“You’re not gonna lose me, sweetheart. I’m tougher than I look, promise.” 

She produced her taser seemingly out of thin air and shoved it into his hands. He shook his head and handed it back.

“You keep that. Just in case. Use it on anyone who comes to the door that isn’t me.”

Darcy’s lip trembled. She pulled him in for a searing kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and twisting her fingers through his hair. She was branding him - stamping her ownership of his heart and soul all over for the world to see. Letting anyone who looked know that he was forever spoken for and under her furious protection.

“You die on me, and I will resurrect your ass so damn fast so I can tase you into next week, you hear me?”

He grinned, despite himself. “No dying. Message received.”

“And...well, okay, I won’t be _happy_ if you get maimed, but it’s not a dealbreaker or anything. You’re more than your pretty face.”

Bucky was _so in love_. “Understood.”

Darcy finally released him and went upstairs. He watched her go, waiting until he heard the click of the lock on the bathroom door to return to the front entry of the lighthouse.

Rumlow pounded on the door again. “Open _up_ , Lewis! You’re going to make me angry, and if I’m angry, you’re not going to like it.”

Bucky rolled his shoulders, loosening up his muscles a little as he palmed the knife he always kept on him. He took a deep breath, then threw open the door.

“Buddy, you got some nerve makin’ all this racket. I live in the middle of nowhere to get some goddamned _peace_.”

Rumlow looked stunned. “Who the hell are you?”

Bucky glared at him. “Well my name’s not Lewis, that’s for damn sure. You’re all the way out here and you’ve got the wrong address anyways!”

Rumlow narrowed his eyes. “You look familiar.”

Bucky shrugged. “One of those faces, I guess.”

Rumlow stared at him. Bucky could practically see the little cogs in the man’s head turning. He needed to wrap this up before he came to any conclusions.

“Now get out of here. Ferry dock is that way - they’ll be by in a few hours.”

Bucky made to shut the door, but Rumlow held it open.

“You’re a Barnes,” Rumlow growled.

“Marvs? No, I don’t know any Marvs either. Look buddy-”

Rumlow forced his way inside and shoved Bucky against the wall, pinning his neck in place with his forearm. Bucky felt the wall give a little with the force of it.

“I don’t need to find Lewis. I’ll get what I want from _you_ ,” Rumlow growled with a wicked gleam in his eye.

Bucky wasn’t about to give him the chance. He flipped the knife in his palm and slashed at the arm holding him in place. Rumlow yelped in surprise and dropped him. Bucky swung his leg up for a kick, then wailed Rumlow in the face with a sucker punch. 

Rumlow staggered back with a yell, but quickly recovered and lunged at Bucky, launching himself into him and knocking them both to the ground. In the scuffle, Bucky lost his grip on the knife. Rumlow snatched it off the ground and plunged it between Bucky’s ribs.

Rumlow sat up. “Now,” he growled, “you’re going to tell me everything I want to know and maybe I won’t let you bleed out on the floor.”

Then he started twitching uncontrollably and flopped to the ground.

Darcy was behind him, taser in hand.

“Bucky!” she exclaimed. “Holy shit that’s a lot of blood. Okay. Okay. We gotta go. We gotta go, right now.”

Darcy bundled him out the door, wrapping an arm around his waist to support his weight. They hobbled down the beach, stumbling every few steps, until they reached an outcropping of rock that hid them from view of the lighthouse.

“Bucky,” Darcy said, quickly running her hands over him. He was still holding his side where he’d been stabbed. “Bucky, this looks really bad.”

“It is really bad,” he mumbled, leaning into her. There were dark spots in his vision and he fought to remain conscious. He pulled one hand away to check the damage and really wished he hadn’t. “Darcy…”

Darcy wrapped something warm and heavy around his shoulders. “You have to go.”

Go? Go where? He didn’t want to go. Darcy was here, why would he go?

“Bucky, you have to change. You have to go into the sea.” Darcy was looking a little frantic now. “Bucky, I don’t know if there’s like a zipper to pull or something, but you need to change and you need to hide and you need to do it now.”

Oh. She wanted to see his magic trick. He was a bit tired for that at the moment. Maybe he could show her later, after a little nap.

“Bucky!” Darcy cried. She slapped his face. “Come on, Buck, help a girl out.”

She slapped him again and he felt a fog lift from his brain. 

_Okay Barnes. Evaluate._

He’d been stabbed. Pretty badly, by the looks of it. They were next to the ocean. Darcy had wrapped his sealskin around him.

_Oh._

“You’re sending me away?”

Darcy looked like she wanted to scream. “Bucky, I _can’t help you here_. This wound is bad enough, but on top of it, I have to deal with Rumlow. He’s HYDRA, he _can’t_ find you. You need to go, hide in the sea, where they can’t find you. Go see your friend, whatshisface, go hide with him.”

“No.” The thought of being away from Darcy tore at him. Even if it was for his own safety. He didn’t want to leave her. Since the moment she’d returned his sealskin, the pull to her had always been stronger than the pull to the sea, and now was no different. Besides that, she was still in danger. He needed to know that she would be safe and he wouldn’t know that if he left her now.

“Bucky-”

“I won’t leave you behind. You can’t follow me if I go into the sea to find Subby.” He shook his head. “I won’t leave you. I am _not leaving you_.”

“Bucky, you have to go. You have to.”

“No!” he cried, desperately. Didn’t she understand? She had said it herself - they had just found each other. He couldn’t let her go now.

“Bucky!” Darcy cradled his face in her hands and pressed a long, desperate kiss to his lips. “I’m setting you free,” she whispered.

It felt like a death sentence. With four little words, Darcy had ripped the heart from his chest and tossed it away. He wailed in despair.

“No, Darcy, please. No, don’t make me go. Don’t send me away,” he begged.

“I don’t want you to go, Bucky,” Darcy said, fat tears streaming down her cheeks. “But you need to - you _have_ to go. I can’t protect you here anymore.” She pulled his skin around him more securely. “You have to go.”

He finally relented with a sob, his own tears streaming freely. “Cry seven tears into the sea,” he said, “and I will come for you. I swear it, I will always come for you. I’ll find you, no matter what.”

She nodded and he pulled her into another desperate kiss. 

“I love you, wife,” he murmured against her lips. He turned to go, not waiting for an answer, not wanting to see the look on her face. He knew he wouldn’t survive seeing her rejection - and if he saw anything close to resembling love or affection he would never be able to gather the strength to leave.

His feet had just touched the water when Darcy cried out. 

“Wait!”

He spun around. Darcy hadn’t moved from the spot where he’d left her. 

“You’re not gonna be stuck in the sea for seven years or something right?”

He rushed back to her side and pulled her into his arms. He kissed her temple. “No,” he said, closing his eyes and breathing her in deep. “Nothing like that at all. And even if I was, I would find a way back to you when you called. I promise you, I will come back for you.”

“Okay,” Darcy replied, her voice muffled as she buried her face into his shoulder. “Then get going while the tide is high.”

“It’s actually low tide right now and -”

“Oh my god, I have the most pedantic husband ever! Get out of here! Stop bleeding all over my beach!”

Bucky’s brain stopped functioning at Darcy’s use of “husband” and she practically had to push him to the water.

“Go.”

“I’m coming back,” he promised, brushing one more kiss against her lips.

“I know you are.” Darcy extracted herself from him and wrapped her arms around herself as she stepped away from the water.

He walked backwards into the waves, wanting to keep his eyes on her for as long as he could. Finally, he sank down and let his magic change him, slipping into his selkie form. Darcy laughed in amazement as he swam away, wiping the tears from her face. 

Bucky dipped beneath the waves and finally forced himself to turn and swim away.


	18. Chapter 17

Bucky struggled against the current, constantly listing a little off course as his stronger right side pulled him away. It didn’t help that he’d been stabbed on the left, although the sea was doing its very best to take care of him in that regard. He could feel himself knitting back together and it was a bit distracting.

He needed the distraction, if he was ever going to make it to his destination. If he thought about how he’d left Darcy _at all_ \- alone on that damned beach, with tears streaming down her face and Rumlow poised to wake up at any second - he’d never make it to Namor. He would turn right back around and follow Darcy’s pull right back to the surface. The sea may have been physically putting him back together, but every stroke or kick of a fin that look him further from Darcy was another tiny papercut to his salt water soaked soul.

The look on her face. He’d called her wife, before everything went to hell, and she hadn’t shied away. She’d _smiled_. And then, in their desperate goodbye, he had let slip his true feelings and in return she’d _finally_ referred to him with the only title he’d wanted since this all started. True, she was sort of shouting at him to get in the water as he was bleeding out and losing consciousness when she’d finally referred to him as her husband, but he still counted it. What was life without a little bit of drama, anyway?

So much of this had been unfair. And yet Darcy had met him every step of the way.

He was the luckiest selkie in the world - on land or in the sea. Current circumstances notwithstanding.

As he swam further and further into the depths, he dreamed. He dreamt of one day surfacing from the waves and approaching the shore to find Darcy minding their four pups - all selkies, just like him. Darcy would love and defend them just as well as she loved and defended him. She would look at him with so much love in her eyes and they would never have the drama or the pain or the sadness of this moment ever again. Once this HYDRA business was behind them, once the world was safe from that madness, they would make good on the promises they made to figure things out. Despite their unconventional start, they would be happy. 

Damn the curse of his kind. He may be something out of a fairytale. The old stories may dictate that selkies never got a happy ending. But this was his story - _their_ story. And they were going to change the ending.

Finally, after what felt like hours, he found the marker he was looking for and pushed the last of his energy into his swim. The guards eyed him suspiciously as he passed, but they made no move to stop him. Namor kept his word that Bucky would be welcome, then. Bucky was infinitely grateful. 

He wandered his way through the city, looking for Namor. After only a few minutes of searching, he appeared in front of Bucky, motioning for Bucky to follow him. He lead them through a winding maze of undersea streets and buildings for over an hour. Just when Bucky felt like his entire left side was going to fall off, Namor directed them inside on of the specialized rooms where Bucky could change back to his human form. 

When Namor gave Bucky the all clear, he slipped out of his sealskin and sat heavily in a chair pulled up to the table.

“I didn’t expect to see you here quite so soon,” Namor said, by way of greeting.

“Ran into some trouble,” Bucky replied, sinking further into the chair as he caught his breath. 

Namor hummed, quickly appraising him, then pressed a button on the wall. “Rest. I’ve sent for some food.”

Bucky nodded his thanks and closed his eyes for a moment before opening them to look at his friend. “Thanks for letting me in and not, you know, blasting me to hell and back.”

“I already told you -”

Bucky waved him off. “I know, I know. My gratitude stands.”

Namor sighed the sigh of the long suffering. “What brings you to me today?”

Bucky sniffed, feeling his sinuses clog up a bit, the way they always did after he changed back to his human form after a long swim. “You remember how I was taken prisoner for a bit during the war?”

Rage burned briefly behind Namor’s eyes, but the king quickly covered it. “Yes. You were worried that HYDRA discovered your true nature and would eventually come to the same conclusion we did regarding its influence on the success of the serum.”

“Yep. Over the last few days, some things have come to light that make me believe HYDRA did know. They figured out exactly what I am and what that means.”

Namor considered this. “While disturbing, this isn’t an urgent revelation. HYDRA is long gone from the surface world, you and Steve both died to ensure it. Unless you believe that the knowledge survived HYDRA’s demise?”

“That’s the other problem. HYDRA’s not nearly as dead as we thought. Steve’s in DC blowing them to hell right now, but one of their minions paid me and Darcy a visit at her lighthouse. It’s where I picked up this lovely souvenir.” He lifted the edge of his shirt to reveal the freshly healed, but still angry pink gash in his side.

Namor ground his teeth as he considered the scar in Bucky’s skin. “What do you mean, exactly, when you say that HYDRA is not nearly as dead as we thought?”

He dropped his shirt, allowing it to settle back in place. “Exactly that. The bastards survived. They were driven underground, but they got their hooks into SHIELD and festered.” He paused as the door slid open and a guard appeared, bearing a tray of food, eyeing Bucky warily. Namor motioned to the table then dismissed the guard with barely a glance. 

When the door closed again, Bucky continued. “HYDRA grew, using the very organization that was founded to stop threats like them to direct attention away from their work. Now they’re after information on me and want to use Darcy to get it. One of their minions showed up - the human that I told you I was worried about. He pegged me as a Barnes almost immediately. Don’t think he put two and two together to figure out I’m _the_ Barnes HYDRA once had, but he knows enough.”

“So you sought sanctuary here?”

“More like I got stabbed and Darcy pushed me in the water.”

Namor’s expression was grim, but appreciative. “Seems as though you’ve tied yourself to one of the few humans with any sense.”

“Darcy is so much more than that,” Bucky muttered. It was futile, he knew, but the idea that Namor thought so little of Darcy just because she was human irked Bucky. “I need your help, Namor. To stop HYDRA once and for all.”

“You just said that Steve is dealing with the problem as we speak.”

“Yes, but that’s not the point. Subby, look.” Bucky sighed and scrubbed his face with his hand before looking back to his friend, searching for a way to get his friend to understand. “HYDRA has discovered that selkies exist and that selkie magic might be the key to unlocking the serum. If they find a way to exploit me or anyone like me - there’s no way you or your people are safe. They will make their way down here and they will -”

“If Steve-”

“How is this even a question? HYDRA is still threatening the world. The _entire_ world, not just the surface parts of it. Nowhere will be safe if they win.”

“James-”

Bucky cut him off again, his anger rising. “I can’t believe you! How is this any different than before? Why is _this time_ different? HYDRA is the threat. We only thought we’d taken them down the last time, when really we just slowed them down and forced them into the shadows. I am asking you to help us take them down for good.”

“No, James. You’re asking me to save your wife. It only has the side benefit of hurting HYDRA.”

Bucky shrugged. “I will freely admit that a very large part of me is devoted to saving Darcy. But I also have other family up there - family that is in danger because of their selkie status. If HYDRA finds them, what they did to me will just be the beginning. And if that happens, HYDRA will have their army of super soldiers and it is game over for the rest of us.”

Namor was quiet for a moment, considering. “What, exactly, are you asking me to do?”

Bucky sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I’m not asking you to declare all out war. I _wouldn’t_ ask you to do that. But…”

“But you are right,” Namor finished. “If this fool is allowed to continue breathing, he could threaten everything we hold dear.”

Bucky breathed a sigh of relief. “Subby-”

“But,” Namor interrupted. “I also have to consider-”

_Bucky._

Bucky lost all focus on Namor and the room in front of him. A pull like he’d never felt before hooked into his chest and he had to reach out and grab the table in front of him to anchor himself, so he didn’t immediately run from the room to follow it. 

_Bucky._

“James?” Namor said, drawing his attention. “Bucky!”

Bucky’s heartbeat thundered in his ears. He couldn’t focus on Namor’s voice or the conversation they’d been having. The only thing that mattered was just how much interference there was between him and the door.

_Bucky._

Darcy. Darcy was calling him.

His heart sang with joy. Darcy had listened to him, followed the instructions he’d given her for how to call him back to her. She wasn’t content to let him go, she was searching for him in the only way she could when they were separated by the sea.

And if Darcy was calling him, that meant that she was still alive. Alive, and near enough to the water that she _could_ call him. 

_Bucky._

Something...something wasn’t right. The call - while unbelievably strong - was tinged with...pain. Panic. Fear.

Darcy was terrified.

The urge to go to her side immediately intensified a thousand fold. That wasn’t selkie magic though. That was just Bucky.

He gripped the table so hard, he crushed the side, causing a crack to splinter through the tabletop and across to the other side. Namor gave Bucky a _look_ but didn’t comment.

“Something’s wrong,” he whispered.

Namor raised an eyebrow. “How do you know?”

“Darcy’s calling me. But...her call is filled with terror. Pain.”

“You live at the call of a human now?”

Bucky didn’t have the patience for this right now. “Yes.” He stepped forward and met Namor’s unwavering gaze. “Namor. I love her. She’s terrified and trying to warn me away, but I have to go to her. Will you help me?”

Namor stared at him, calculating.

“Please,” Bucky pled. “Please, Namor. Will you help me?”


	19. Chapter 18

Darcy sat on her seat on the side of the boat and surreptitiously worked at the ropes binding her hands. The metal nail file she’d hidden in her pocket before Rumlow grabbed her was working overtime trying to chew through the thick rope, but it was slow going. Darcy flicked her eyes towards Rumlow, who was staring out at the ocean through binoculars. She gave one of the ropes a tug and felt it give way. Success! She gave herself one moment to relish the victory before starting work on the next rope.

While she worked, she looked out at the ocean herself. She didn’t know how this whole seven tears into the sea magic thing worked, but she hoped that Bucky got the message she’d tried to will into the tears Rumlow had forced her to shed.

_Do not answer this call. Do not come back here. It’s not safe._

_I can’t lose you._

Maybe the magic understood. Maybe intent was stronger than the specific mechanics of the ritual. Maybe the fact that they were terrified tears and not sad ones changed the molecular structure of her tears to the point that the call was rendered useless, like static over a poor cell signal or something.

Wow, Jane really did live in her head sometimes. 

A tiny dark spot bobbing in the waves caught Darcy’s eye. It was coming closer with some speed.

_Bucky._

Her heart leapt into her throat. Apparently, her attempt to warn him off failed. Or it succeeded and he ignored it. It was a toss up, really. Either way, he was here now and he was _not_ going to be happy with her current predicament. 

She glanced again at Rumlow. His visual sweep of the water was getting closer to Bucky.

“I’m not really sure what you think you’re accomplishing here,” Darcy said suddenly, drawing Rumlow’s attention. He glanced back at her, smirked, then returned his gaze to the binoculars. 

“You have knowledge that I need, but you’re a selfish little girl and didn’t want to share,” he said. “But fortunately, you also lead me here, where I can get all the answers I need for myself.” His grin was wicked and Darcy felt her stomach turn. “And I have a feeling Barnes will give me anything I want to protect your pretty face.”

“Not sure who you’re referring to Rumlow,” Darcy lied. “I’ve been at the lighthouse for days, no one but the caretaker for company.”

“I know that wasn’t just some caretaker, Lewis. I know that it was James Barnes.”

“You’re delusional,” Darcy argued, forcing her panic back down. 

Rumlow’s chuckle was a low grumble, menacing and deep. “You know, if you had just cooperated and told me what you knew, you wouldn’t be in this mess right now.”

“Fine - consider this an appointment made. What do you want to know about James Barnes?”

“Oh no, it’s too late for that. I don’t want Barnes’ life story. I want what Barnes can give me.” He finally turned back to Darcy. “There are no prisoners with HYDRA.”

For the first time, Darcy felt truly, deeply scared and it was only the knowledge that Bucky was lurking just off the bow that kept her from falling apart completely. “Then what the hell are you keeping me here for?”

If he tossed her overboard now, she could swim for it. The shore wasn’t that far. She could make it. Probably.

Rumlow’s grin was absolutely feral. “Bait.”

* * *

Bucky shifted back to his human form and kicked his feet, treading with some effort while he waited for Namor to finish his evaluation of the boat and come back. He didn’t have to wait long. A few moments later, Namor’s head peeked out from the waves next to Bucky.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I think this foolish human will face Atlantean justice for daring to threaten us.”

“Not before I get Darcy to safety,” Bucky warned. “Once she’s safe, I don’t care what happens to Rumlow.”

“I won’t hurt your human, James,” Namor sighed, although Bucky was pretty sure there was a hint of a smile there.

“Good.” Bucky grinned. “So...Imperious Rex?”

“Imperious Rex,” Namor growled, then shot forward towards the boat as Bucky shifted back to his seal form. They were too far away from the shore for Darcy to be able to swim back - he’d be able to help her much easier this way.

Namor sped under the boat, rocking it from side to side. Bucky saw Darcy grab the side rail and furiously work at the ropes binding her hands. He ground his teeth. Rumlow would pay for ever even _thinking_ about harming Darcy.

Not all that long ago, Bucky would have been chomping at the bit, raring to go get a piece of Rumlow himself, desperate to kick some HYDRA ass. He would have bound in, blind. No plan.

Today was not yesterday, however.

Today, Darcy was the mission. Today, Darcy was the only thing that mattered. And he would do whatever it took to get her home safe.

Darcy looked up and met his eyes. She tried to give him a tentative smile, nodding sightly. Bucky felt his rage evaporate. He had one job - get Darcy back to shore safely. Namor would handle Rumlow and that would be good enough.

The boat rocked again as Namor continued to bombard the boat with waves. They were getting a little stronger with each pass and Bucky knew they didn’t have much time to get Darcy off the boat and away to safety.

Darcy stood up, clinging to the side rail, her hands still bound. Rumlow screamed at her, brandishing a gun in her direction. The boat rocked again, and Darcy used the momentum to fling herself over the side.

Bucky rushed to her. She was sinking fast, kicking valiantly but unable to fight her way back to the surface with her hands still tied. He swam faster than he’d ever dared before, rocketing to her side. He caught her, quickly surfacing so she could gasp for breath before biting through the remaining rope around her wrists. 

“Thanks, hubby,” Darcy said, before glancing back over her shoulder towards Rumlow. “Can you outswim a boat?”

He maneuvered himself so her arms looped around his neck, then kicked hard, moving them away from the boat.

“BARNES!” Rumlow screamed and fired his gun.

Bucky didn’t think, just ducked below the surface of the water swimming as fast as he could. He hoped Darcy had a chance to take a breath before he’d gone under water. He’d have to surface more often than he was comfortable with - it would slow down their progress, but he couldn’t risk Darcy.

He surfaced again. Darcy coughed and sputtered, and he craned his head back to check on her.

“Just swim,” she gasped. “I’ll match you.”

A thunderous roar caused them both to turn back to look at the boat. Namor launched himself out of the water and was controlling the waves around the boat as Rumlow fired bullet after bullet into the sky towards him.

“You require a weapon? COWARD!” Namor roared. An enormous swell had formed at Namor’s command and was about to over take the boat.

“Oh shi-” Rumlow screamed as the wave hit.

“SWIM!” Darcy yelled. 

But Bucky was frozen in place. He had to know - he had to be _sure_ \- that Rumlow could never come after them again. That whatever he might have learned would never be passed along to whatever bit of HYDRA inevitably escaped Steve’s onslaught.

Namor dove beneath the water. A moment later, he launched into the sky, the wings at his ankles fluttering madly as he pulled Rumlow out of the water. The man gasped for air as he blinked the salt water out of his eyes. 

“Bucky,” Darcy said, her voice tinged with nerves. She tightened her grip on him, pulling him close as they watched Namor fly Rumlow higher and higher into the sky.

Namor abruptly changed course and streaked toward the water. Rumlow barely had time to scream before Namor dragged him under.

The waters around them changed suddenly. The current Bucky had been fighting against to get Darcy back to shore suddenly lessened and gentle waves buffeted them back towards land.

_Thanks Subby._

Bucky turned and began the long swim back. He could just make out the lighthouse in the distance. It wouldn’t take him long to get them there, especially now that Namor was calming the water around them.

They were about halfway back to shore when the pain registered. He did a mental tally - his left side was still weaker than it had been before he’d been frozen, but it was a little better than it was. The gash Rumlow had cut into his side when he’d stabbed him stretched uncomfortably, but it was almost completely healed as well. 

No, this pain...this pain was new.

Black spots suddenly filled Bucky’s vision. 

The gunshot. Rumlow must have hit him. In the chaos, he hadn’t noticed.

Tired. So tired. He felt his eyes slip closed and he sank a little behind the waves.

“Bu-” Darcy sputtered as he pulled her under.

Darcy. He had to get Darcy back to shore.

He kicked back to the surface and looked around. His heart sank - the lighthouse was too far. He couldn’t get both himself and Darcy back and it was too far for Darcy to swim on her own. Namor hadn’t resurfaced yet, so he was clearly still busy dealing with Rumlow.

Nothing for it then. He just had to keep going. He kicked again and immediately slid under the surface with a wail of pain.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t make it. He was dead weight and they weren’t going to make it.

He struggled to the surface. Darcy coughed and wiped the water from her eyes.

“Bucky, what’s wrong?” 

Using the last of his strength, he changed back to his human form.

“Darcy,” he gasped.

“Why did you change? Bucky! Bucky, what’s wrong?”

He tugged her into a hug and kissed her temple, wrapping her up close.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“Bucky,” Darcy whimpered in confusion.

“I love you.” He tugged the sealskin around Darcy’s shoulders and pulled one last hit of magic out of sheer will.

“Bucky?” Darcy’s voice echoed in his mind as he slipped away, the world fading to black.


	20. Chapter 19

Darcy tried to blink away her disorientation. Everything was - fuzzy. But she felt energized like she’d just pounded three espressos brewed with Red Bull and was pretty sure if she tried she could run through a wall while writing a dissertation on _War and Peace_. Why she would want to do that was a little unclear, but - 

_Focus._

Darcy kicked and - 

_Holy shit, I’m a seal._

_WHY THE FUCK AM I A SEAL._

_BUCKY! GET YOUR FLIPPERED ASS BACK HERE AND EXPLAIN WHY I AM A SEAL!_

Darcy spun around, trying to find Bucky, but she had really poor control in her new form and spun a little too far too fast and only managed to spin in circles and make herself dizzy. She slowed her momentum and ducked her head trying to block out all of the new sensory input and _focus_ on finding Bucky. He had just been in front of her! They were in the damn ocean! Where the hell did he-

Oh. Oh no.

She opened her eyes just under the water and saw Bucky’s human form sinking quickly.

She tried to scream his name, but all that came out was a wailing bark that she might be embarrassed about under other circumstances. Right now, she had to get to Bucky and stop the idiot from drowning.

_You’re a goddamn creature of the sea, Barnes. Get your shit together, this is just embarrassing!_

Bucky continued sinking and Darcy kicked harder trying desperately to reach him. No more little bubbles were escaping from his nose and she was starting to freak out just a little.

Finally, she reached him. She quickly figured out how to swing him onto her back and kicked her way back to the surface. They broke through into the air with a gasp, but Bucky wasn’t waking up.

_Okay. Don’t panic. Shore is that way. Just keep swimming._

Darcy kicked and kicked and kicked. She didn’t stop kicking until her belly was sliding across the sand of the beach in front of the lighthouse. Then she kicked and flopped some more until Bucky was well clear of the water. She rolled to her side, depositing him onto the sand, then backed up a little, panting. 

_Great. We made it. Now what?_

She looked around. Bucky was breathing, but hadn’t woken up. There was a nasty looking wound in his shoulder that looked like it might still be bleeding. 

Hands. She needed hands.

_So...uh...sealskin? Can I be a human again, please? I need to make sure Bucky’s okay and opposable thumbs would be nice._

Darcy felt a rush through her system as she collapsed onto the beach. She blinked a few times and pulled the sealskin from her shoulders. 

“That’s definitely in the running for weirdest thing to ever happen to me,” she muttered. She crawled to Bucky and blinked tears from her eyes. She covered him with the sealskin, not wanting to risk jostling him and making the wound in his shoulder worse.

“Come on, baby, wake up for me. Open those eyes.” Bucky didn’t move and Darcy was suddenly struck by the memory of the selkie chapter in the book Ian had sent her.

_While the tales of Selkies always begin with a warm and peaceful "once upon a time", there can be no happy ending for the tales of Selkies - someone always gets their heart broken._

“That crap doesn’t apply to us, do you hear me?” Darcy sobbed. “The rules of your fairy tale are bogus so I am changing the ending!”

There was a crunch behind her as something landed on the sand. Darcy spun, scrambling for her taser and thanking Frigga she’d sprung for the waterproof model. She aimed it at the new arrival - some weirdo in a speedo and wings on his feet.

“Who the hell are you?”

He barely glanced at her taser. “Does he live?”

“Answer my question and I won’t have to use this!” The man stepped towards them and Darcy raised the taser. “Try me Grumpy Gills. I took down the God of Thunder with this baby. You and your _puddles_ don’t scare me.”

He glared at her. “You _dare_ threaten the King of Atlantis?”

That rang a bell. “You...You’re whatshisface? The guy Bucky was going to for help?”

“Whatshisface?” Namor repeated, his voice dry.

“Uh…” Darcy scrambled for a name. “Subby, right?”

Namor pinched the bridge of his nose and winced. “Yes,” he bit out through gritted teeth. “I’m Subby.”

Darcy lowered the taser. “Great. Can I get some help here? I’d like to get him inside.”

Namor approached slowly and knelt next to Bucky, scooping him up and nodding at Darcy to lead them inside. Just as they got inside, the front door flew open. 

“Bucky? Darcy?” Steve called. When he saw them coming through the back, Steve’s eyes widened. “Namor?”

“Let’s get him upstairs where I can get a better look at that shoulder, then you two can catch up, okay?” Darcy said.

Namor took Bucky upstairs while Darcy grabbed the first aid kit out of the kitchen. She nodded to Steve. “You okay?”

“I dropped three helicarriers in the Potomac and dismantled a major portion of the United States intelligence apparatus. You?”

“I was kidnapped, turned into a seal, and threatened a water-breathing sea king with a taser.”

Steve blinked, then nodded, as though this conversation made any sense in a rational universe.

Darcy gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Make yourself at home. I’m going to go look after the husband.”

Steve smiled. “He finally told you, huh?”

“And it wasn’t even the weirdest thing to happen this week.”

Steve laughed, then reached into his jacket. “Doctor Foster’s intern? I think? He was oddly insistent that I get this to you and that you read it immediately.” He held out a letter. “If he’s warning you that Doctor Foster is HYDRA, please don’t tell me until I’ve had a nap?”

Darcy snorted. “Janey is not HYDRA, but I’ll pass along the great faith you have in other people.” Just as Darcy turned to go up the steps, he called her back.

“Darcy.”

“Yeah?”

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad it was you.”

Darcy grinned. “Me too.”

* * *

Bucky groaned as he slowly came back to consciousness. Everything. Fucking. _Hurt._ Why the hell did everything hurt? He laid still for another few moments, breathing through the pain. Suddenly, the events of the last few hours came rushing back and his eyes flew open.

“Hey there, handsome. Easy does it. Everything is okay,” Darcy soothed, running her hand over his hair.

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Darcy.” 

“Hi.”

“What happened?”

“You mean after you turned me into a damn seal?”

He gaped at her. “What.”

“You tell me, buddy.”

“I was - I just…” Bucky sighed and gently reached to scrub his face with his hand. “I was just trying to protect you. It shouldn’t have…” His voice trailed off as a thought occurred to him. “Anyone in your family get married suddenly after visiting the ocean?”

Darcy blinked. “Uh...yeah. My grandfather.”

Bucky huffed out a startled laugh. “Congratulations. You’re part selkie.”

“I’m a what now.”

Bucky reached for her hand and tugged her close, encouraging her to lean in so he could brush a kiss to her lips. “My beautiful, brilliant wife,” he whispered. “You’re a selkie. More human than anything else, but the magic is still there.”

“Huh. Cool.” Darcy gave him another kiss, then handed him a letter. “Since you’re good at this deciphering the weird shit that happens thing, maybe you can translate Ian’s letter? It’s just some coordinates and instructions to bring a shovel. That sort of thing will never not be creepy, by the way, I swear I was working on training it out of him, but apparently Ian is backsliding a bit.”

“What?” Bucky skimmed the letter, confirming with his own eyes what Darcy had told him. Boothby gave them a set of coordinates and instructions to start digging. Which…

No. No way.

“You wouldn’t happen to know if there’s a tree at this spot would you?” he asked slowly.

“It’s a park, so maybe?”

“Boothby definitely is not human. There’s no possible way.”

“O...kay?”

Bucky squeezed her hand. “How would you feel about having a sealskin of your very own?”

Darcy’s eyes widened as the realization hit her. “Holy shit,” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Holy. Shit.”

Bucky grinned. “Yeah.”

“That’s...I can’t. I can’t even right now. We’ll think about that once you’re feeling better.” Darcy’s grin grew and Bucky knew that he was going to be digging up a tree sooner rather than later. That was a dream he’d never even dared hope for and now...Well. He might technically be the mythical creature, but Darcy was magic unto herself. 

“So,” Darcy said. “Want the short version or the long version of what happened after you passed out on me? Which you are so in trouble for, by the way, don’t think I’ve forgotten how you basically gave up on me out there and were going to let yourself drown.”

“Which version includes me moving over so you can snuggle in next to me?”

“Oooh tough call. Probably the short one.”

“Short version it is.” With some effort and a stifled groan, Bucky dragged himself over to make room for Darcy next to him. She carefully climbed in and rested her head on his chest, careful to avoid the bandages wrapping his shoulder.

She quickly told him the story of how she got them back to shore, how she’d threatened Namor with her taser, how Namor had gotten them inside. How Steve had shown up just in time to be of no help at all.

“Any word on what happened to Rumlow?”

Darcy shook her head. “Maybe Namor will give you more details, but all he’ll tell me is ‘he won’t be bothering the surface world again any time soon.’”

Bucky kissed her hair and she let out a soft, happy sigh as she closed her eyes.

“I’m so glad you’re going to be okay, Bucky.”

“I made you a promise, didn’t I?”

He could feel her smile against his chest. “You did.” 

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “I don’t ever want to make you a promise that I can’t keep, Darcy. It’s just not in me,” he murmured.

Darcy hummed softly, then tensed a little against him. “Yeah...about that.”

Bucky’s stomach dropped. “What is it?” 

“You think...someday...maybe we could get human married too?”

Bucky blinked. “You...want to get married?”

“I mean, we already are, right? So it would just be like...I don’t know, a formality? Vow renewal? I don’t know, I just…” She shrugged. “It’s not a big deal, I was just wondering,” she whispered.

“Hey now,” he said quickly. “None of that. You want to get human married? We’ll have the biggest human wedding the future as ever seen. I’ll marry you in every tradition every species on this planet has. You got ways to go to other planets? We’ll get married there, too.” He peppered her fingertips with more kisses. “Anything you want, Darcy. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh,” she said quietly. “Okay.” She bit her lip to try to hide her grin and failed.

He’d done that. He’d made her happy. He wanted to do it again. And again. And again. As many times as possible for the rest of their lives.

And it was looking like he might just get that chance.

She sat up and grabbed his sealskin from where it had shifted when he’d moved. “Let’s get you up for a sec so I can wrap this around you.”

Bucky hesitated. “I don’t...it’s okay, Darcy. I’ll heal up fine without it.”

Confusion crossed her features. “But...I thought - you said you didn’t know if it was a selkie thing or a Barnes thing, but it helped you survive...everything. Won’t wearing it speed things up?”

“It can. But all of this?” he motioned to himself. “All mundane damage. I’ll heal up just fine without it.”

“I don’t understand.”

He gently grasped her hands and pushed the sealskin back to her. “Here.”

Darcy’s eyes went wide with realization. “What? No. No way, it’s yours.”

“Darcy, no. I need you to take it. I need you to hide it. Somewhere I won’t find it.”

“Hell no! I’m not doing that to you.”

Bucky’s heart sank and he stared at the ceiling for a moment, trying to breathe through the sudden pain in his chest that had nothing to do with his physical wounds. “So...that’s it then? After all this, you - you just...You want to marry me but you don’t want me?”

“Bucky, I don’t want to trap you. It’s just not in me to do that to you. Just like it’s not in you to make promises to me that you can’t keep.”

“I don’t understand,” Bucky replied miserably, closing his eyes to hide his confused tears.

Darcy took a deep breath, clearly weighing her words carefully. “Bucky, please look at me.” When he finally opened his eyes to look at her, there were tears shining in her eyes as well.

“Bucky...I want you to be free to go, if you want. I don’t want you to stay because you feel you have to, or because I’ve taken something of yours that you don’t want to be without. If you stay, I want you to stay because it’s what _you want_ , not what _I’ve forced_.”

Bucky’s expression changed rapidly as realization dawned. “So...you do want to keep me?” he asked, his voice very small.

Darcy let out a watery laugh. “Yes! I love you, you goober. I want to keep you, always.”

The smile that grew across Bucky’s face felt like it would split his face in two. “Darcy,” he said as he held out the skin to her again, “I’m choosing to give this to you. I’m choosing to be bound to you. This is me, choosing to stay. Because I want to. Because I want to be with you.”

“Oh.” She ran her fingers over the leather as Bucky held it out to her again.

“Please, Darcy,” Bucky whispered. “Please. Keep me.”

Darcy took it from him. “Okay,” she whispered back, hugging the sealskin to her chest. Bucky’s answering grin could have powered four city blocks at the height of summer. “But if you _ever_ want it back - for any reason - you just ask me, okay? I’ll give it back.”

“I’m never gonna,” he warned.

She rolled her eyes. “You stubborn little-”

“But I recognize that the opportunity is there, should I ever sustain a severe head injury, lose my senses entirely, and want to give up the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

Bucky shrugged. “You’re the expert on me,” he grinned. “You knew what you were getting into.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they lived happily ever after. Because the first thing I read when researching selkie lore for this story was that they never get a happy ending, and that's crap.
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking with the story until the end. Let's scream about superheroes, shall we?  
> I'm seibelsays at Tumblr, Dreamwidth, Pillowfort. If you just want to see stuff I've written, I'm hanging out at seibelsays-andwrites on Tumblr.
> 
> Come join the fun at the MCU Fanfiction Corner Discord: https://discord.gg/yqw7uhJ
> 
> Until next time, be good to one another.
> 
> May all your favorite bands stay together,  
> <3 seibelsays


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